Lost In Transition Constructing Memory In

Contemporary Spain 1st Edition H Rosi Song

download

https://ebookbell.com/product/lost-in-transition-constructing-
memory-in-contemporary-spain-1st-edition-h-rosi-song-51591242

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Lost In Transition Redefining Students And Universities In The

Contemporary Kyrgyz Republic 1st Edition Alan J Deyoung

https://ebookbell.com/product/lost-in-transition-redefining-students-
and-universities-in-the-contemporary-kyrgyz-republic-1st-edition-alan-
j-deyoung-51388512

Lost In Transition Ethnographies Of Everyday Life After Communism

Kristen Ghodsee

https://ebookbell.com/product/lost-in-transition-ethnographies-of-
everyday-life-after-communism-kristen-ghodsee-51889518

Lost In Transition The Dark Side Of Emerging Adulthood 1st Edition

Smith

https://ebookbell.com/product/lost-in-transition-the-dark-side-of-
emerging-adulthood-1st-edition-smith-38324400

Lost In Transition The Changing Dynamics Of Traditional Nur Gender

Roles And The Migrant Experience Bichok Wan Kot

https://ebookbell.com/product/lost-in-transition-the-changing-
dynamics-of-traditional-nur-gender-roles-and-the-migrant-experience-
bichok-wan-kot-10481122
Lost In Transition Ethnographies Of Everyday Life After Communism
Kristen Ghodsee

https://ebookbell.com/product/lost-in-transition-ethnographies-of-
everyday-life-after-communism-kristen-ghodsee-10835294

Housing Policy Reforms In Post Socialist Europe Lost In Transition 1st

Edition Prof Dr Sasha Tsenkova Eds

https://ebookbell.com/product/housing-policy-reforms-in-post-
socialist-europe-lost-in-transition-1st-edition-prof-dr-sasha-
tsenkova-eds-2011970

From Cancer Patient To Cancer Survivor Lost In Transition 1st Edition

Maria Elizabeth Hewitt

https://ebookbell.com/product/from-cancer-patient-to-cancer-survivor-
lost-in-transition-1st-edition-maria-elizabeth-hewitt-2381018

Female Combatants After Armed Struggle Lost In Transition 1st Edition

Niall Gilmartin

https://ebookbell.com/product/female-combatants-after-armed-struggle-
lost-in-transition-1st-edition-niall-gilmartin-36352268

South Africas Postapartheid Military Lost In Transition And

Transformation Lindy Heinecken

https://ebookbell.com/product/south-africas-postapartheid-military-
lost-in-transition-and-transformation-lindy-heinecken-10675962
Lost in Transition
 Contemporary Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures

Series Editor
L. Elena Delgado, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Niamh Thornton, University of Liverpool

Series Editorial Board

Jo Labanyi, New York University
Chris Perriam, University of Manchester
Paul Julian Smith, CUNY Graduate Center
This series aims to provide a forum for new research on modern and contemporary
hispanic and lusophone cultures and writing. The volumes published in
Contemporary Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures reflect a wide variety of critical
practices and theoretical approaches, in harmony with the intellectual, cultural
and social developments that have taken place over the past few decades. All
manifestations of contemporary hispanic and lusophone culture and expression are
considered, including literature, cinema, popular culture, theory. The volumes in the
series will participate in the wider debate on key aspects of contemporary culture.
1 Jonathan Mayhew, The Twilight of the Avant-Garde:
Contemporary Spanish Poetry 1980–2000
2 Mary S. Gossy, Empire on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
3 Paul Julian Smith, Spanish Screen Fiction: Between Cinema and Television
4 David Vilaseca, Queer Events: Post-Deconstructive Subjectivities
in Spanish Writing and Film, 1960s to 1990s
5 Kirsty Hooper, Writing Galicia into the World: New Cartographies, New Poetics
6 Ann Davies, Spanish Spaces: Landscape, Space and Place in
Contemporary Spanish Culture
7 Edgar Illas, Thinking Barcelona: Ideologies of a Global City
8 Joan Ramon Resina, Iberian Modalities: A Relational Approach to the
Study of Culture in the Iberian Peninsula
9 Bruno Carvalho, Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro
(from the 1810s Onward)
10 Javier Krauel, Imperial Emotions: Cultural Responses to Myths of Empire
in Fin-de-Siècle Spain
11 Luis Moreno-Caballud, translated by Linda Grabner, Cultures of Anyone:
Studies on Cultural Democratization in the Spanish Neoliberal Crisis
Lost in Transition
Constructing Memory
in Contemporary Spain

H. Rosi Song

L I V ER POOL U N I V ER SI T Y PR ESS
 First published 2016 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU
Copyright © 2016 H. Rosi Song
The right of H. Rosi Song to be identified as the author of this book
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CIP record is available
print ISBN 978-1-78138-287-5 cased
epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-460-2
Typeset in Borges by
Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster
 Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

1. Transitional Memories 5

2. Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 28

3. The Moment of Memory 49

4. Mediating Memory (or Telling How It Happened) 88

5. Transitional Stories 137

Conclusion 188

Filmography 193

Works Cited 198

Index 205
 Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements

W riting a book, it turns out, takes a global village. It really does.

I cannot count the many ways in which I have been helped by
colleagues and friends living and working all over the world, who have
kept me focused on this project to the end with their support and constant
encouragement. My interest in the Spanish Transición began many years
ago, perhaps explained by the fact that I missed living through my own
political transition twice: once in the place where I was born, and again in
the place where I grew up. Looking back, all of my scholarly research has
been related in one way or another to this period in Spanish politics and
culture, attempting to understand what political change means, how it
affects individuals and their everyday lives, and, most importantly, what sort
of stories are told about those experiences. The past has always haunted my
imagination: from my mother’s recollections of the Korean War to the many
versions of why and how my family ended up moving to South America, I
have always been interested in hearing these repeated versions of the past. I
have enjoyed these memories not for the truth they contained, but for all of
the times they have allowed me to discover unexpected links to my present.
Small and seemingly unimportant details have the potential to become
powerful memories and unforgettable lessons. I will never look at a blister
on my foot without hearing my mother tell me about hers escaping the war
and how I learned to treat them despite the pain in order to be able to walk
again the following day.
Walking and writing, repeatedly and without pain, has always been
possible because of the support of colleagues and friends. I am grateful
to María Fernanda Lander, who has consistently been there for me over
two decades, as a friend, a colleague, and a trusted reader of my work. To
Wadda Ríos-Font for her support and friendship, and for all the fabulous
travelling we have done together over the years. I have been lucky to find a
supportive group in my field of study, from whom I have learned so much
over the years; I am constantly inspired by their thinking and research,
viii Lost in Transition

our scholarly collaborations, our conference meetings, and friendly digital

exchanges. I am deeply thankful to William J. Nichols, Robert Davidson,
Francisco Fernández de Alba, Cristina Moreiras-Menor, Malcolm Compitello,
Alberto Mira, Elena Luisa Delgado, Joseba Gabilondo, Mary Ann Newman,
Paul Julian Smith, Jo Labanyi, James D. Fernández, Benita Sampedro, Leigh
Mercer, Jerelyn Johnson, Ofelia Ferrán, Ana Corbalán, Sohyun Lee, and
Annabel Martín. Special thanks are in order for Jorge Marí for the fun
presentation on the 23-F we put together for the 2015 Cine-Lit. Thanks to
José F. Colmeiro for making a cameo appearance during our paper and to
Marcela T. Garcés for organising the panel. To Steven Marsh for letting me
use his photograph of the 15-M on the cover of this book and to Txetxu
Aguado for sending me a copy of his monograph on memory in Spain at
the precise moment when I needed it. Finally, I am immensely grateful to
Enric Bou, from whose knowledge, wisdom, and support I have benefitted
for so many years. Always ready to lend a hand and generous with his time
and encouraging words, he brought much joy to my academic wandering
with an invitation to join him for a semester in Venice. Having finished the
last corrections to the manuscript in this city floating on a magical lagoon,
my memories of this book will always be tied to its enchanting landscape.
Thank you.
My work and life at Bryn Mawr College would not be as productive or
satisfying without the brilliant colleagues I work with and have the privilege
of calling friends: Homay King, Bethany Schneider, Kate Thomas, Sharon
Ullman, Camilla MacKay, Michelle Mancini, Hoang Tan Nguyen, Elly Truitt,
Ignacio Gallup-Díaz, Jennifer Hartford-Vargas, and Shiamin Kwa. Special
thanks go to Bethany and Kate once more for all the amazing meals they
have prepared for me and for the timely drinks they have offered me over
the years. And also to Sharon, without whose companionship every day last
summer as my writing partner (and fellow soccer watcher), I would not have
finished this book.
I will always be thankful to my departmental colleagues, who have
consistently been supportive of my work: María Cristina Quintero, Inés
Arribas, Kaylea Mayer, Enrique Sacerio-Garí, and Martín Gaspar, and to my
colleagues in the Spanish departments at Haverford and Swarthmore: María
Luisa Guardiola, Luciano Martínez, Nanci Buiza, Adrián Gras-Velázquez,
Israel Burshatin, Ana López-Sánchez, Roberto Castillo Sandoval, Graciela
Michelotti, and Aurelia Gómez Unamuno. My life is constantly enhanced by
the wonderful support and caring friendship of Oliva Cardona.
Thanks also for the patience and editing skills of Camilla MacKay, my
awesome student Emily McBride, and the magic wand of Caitlin Keenan.
To Alex Wescott for his attention to the index of this book. I have been very
 Acknowledgements ix

lucky to work with Anthony Cond, editor at Liverpool University Press,

who welcomed my initial proposal and patiently and generously guided me
through the process of finishing this project. Thanks too to the external
readers for their insightful comments to the early version of the manuscript.
To the editorial team at Liverpool University Press and especially to Rachel
Adamson from Carnegie Book Production. I am grateful to the Office of
the Provost at Bryn Mawr College for providing financial support to cover
editing costs; to the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies
and to Paul Preston for hosting me as a visiting scholar during the academic
year 2012–13; and to the Dipartimento de Studi Linguistici e Culturali
Comparati at Università Ca’Foscari Venezia, where I spent a happy semester
as a Visiting Professor in the fall of 2015.
My deepest gratitude goes to Kim, Rosa, and Xènia Coromines-Rizvi, who
welcomed me into their family in Barcelona. I am grateful to Montse, Aitor,
and Leire Zuloaga-Gil for being part of my social and culinary world when I
am in the Catalan capital. Other friends and colleagues in Philadelphia and
beyond who have offered friendship and support over the years include, in
no particular order, Imke Meyer, Heidi Schlipphacke, Todd Shepard, Juan
Arbona, Chris Farr, Anita Bechtholt, Virginia Chang, Marcelo Sánchez, Saïd
Gaia, Dredge Kang, Tick Ahearn, Tim McCall, Farid Azfar, Raji Mohan, Nilgün
Uygun, and Henry Sias. Thanks to Bob and Fran for letting me be part of
their underground kitchen crew. I also thank my brother B. Jerry Song and
his family for their continued support.
Finally, I dedicate this book to my parents: to my father, who embarked
my family on a wild adventure four decades ago, and to my mother, who
lived this craziness with love and unmeasurable generosity to those around
her. And my deepest gratitude and love to Duncan Black, who willingly and
lovingly became part of my multi-everything world.

Part of the discussion on the Spanish Law of Historical Memory was

included in my article ‘Visual Fictions of the Spanish Civil War’, published
in MLN 129 (2014): 367–90 © 2014 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
 Introduction
Introduction

History is hysterical: it is constituted only if we consider it,

only if we look at it—and in order to look at it,
we must be excluded from it.
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 65

O n 23 March 2014, while I was writing this book, Adolfo Suárez died.
Afflicted by Alzheimer’s, the politician most associated with the
political transformation of Spain into a democracy following the death of
General Francisco Franco in 1975 lived much of his later life away from the
public eye. His death had been expected for a few days and the headlines of
the Spanish dailies predictably highlighted his role in the Transición. This
coverage explicitly identified Suárez’s persona with this political process,
and the front-page photographs of him, repeatedly juxtaposed with the
word transición, reinforced this direct association. While this intimate
identification had long been made, official recollections of this era, such
as that offered by King Juan Carlos on the day of Suárez’s death, cemented
this connection:

Pero el dolor no es obstáculo para recordar y valorar uno de los

capítulos más brillantes de la Historia de España: la Transición que,
protagonizada por el pueblo español, impulsamos Adolfo y yo junto
con un excepcional grupo de personas de diferentes ideologías, unidos
por una gran generosidad y un alto sentido del patriotismo. Un capítulo
que dio paso al período de mayor progreso económico, social y político
de nuestro país.1

What has become evident in recent years, however, is that this version of the
past is no longer sustainable. For many, the king’s speech served as another

1 The text of this speech can be found in Junqueras (2014).

2 Lost in Transition

reminder of how much has been forgotten in Spain. Fuelled by the ongoing
financial crisis, grassroots protest movements such as the 15-M of 2011–12
have challenged the memory of the Transición. The rise of the populist
party Podemos, the demand for a referendum in Catalonia in 2013–14, and
the string of political scandals covered in the press all reflect a broader
questioning of the triumphant rhetoric surrounding the Spanish transition.
The remembered brilliance of this period, along with the economic, social,
and political progress recalled in the speech above, seems painfully at
odds with the daily coverage of Spanish politics and finance. The struggles
reported in the press, involving both the main right-wing and left-wing
political parties, have revealed deep-seated problems that go beyond current
economic and political challenges to the country’s democratic system. The
financial crisis that began in 2008 became an ideological struggle that
quickly transformed into a critical inquiry into the nation’s troubled past.
Ironically, this sense of crisis has also reinforced for some the mythical
status of the Spanish Transición. As one of La Vanguardia’s headlines stated,
‘Spain in crisis elevates Adolfo Suárez to the category of myth’ (‘La España
en crisis eleva a Adolfo Suárez a la categoría de mito’).2 Here, the triumphant
memory of—or perhaps, the forgetting of the true nature of—Spain’s
political shift has worked to counter the narratives of the nation’s ongoing
financial and political crisis. Curiously, what both positions reveal is an
intimate connection between the troubled political and financial present and
what happened during the period of the Transición. Though the narrative of
Spain’s political transformation has been under scrutiny since the 1980s, it
is only now that the foundational pieces of this triumphant story are being
challenged directly.3
Lost in Transition examines this challenge through a close reading of
recent films, television series, and novels that revisit the political period of
Spain’s transformation from a dictatorship into a democracy. The memories
narrated and represented in these works derive from what I call a ‘memory
project’ in which a generation of writers, filmmakers, and TV producers born
in the sixties and early seventies obsessively revisit this period in an effort
to capture and narrate the experience of political change. I characterise these
memories as ‘projects’ because of the way the Transición is perceived: as an
open question or a conundrum to be solved individually and collectively.

2 Headline available at http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20140324/54404

368641/adolfo-suarez-mito-espana-crisis.html. Accessed 24 March 2014.
3 Case in point: around the time of Suárez’s death, the long-time conservative
journalist Pilar Urbano published a highly controversial book entitled La gran
desmemoria. Lo que Suárez olvidó y el Rey prefiere no recordar (2014), in which she suggests
that the Spanish king is not exactly a hero of the political transformation in Spain.
 Introduction 3

In this context, the term ‘project’ refers to the nature of the undertaking of
these memories. The recollections are carefully planned and broken down
into details, reflecting a desire to achieve a particular objective. The goal is
to recreate conditions that facilitate the possibility of experiencing the past
in the present through affect, intimate connection, or as an extension of one’s
self or one’s current circumstances. For this reason, the past in these works
is often positioned in direct reference to the present, establishing a causal
connection between what has been and what currently is. A relationship of
contiguity is also established in which the physicality of the past can be
found embodied in objects, places, or gestures. To better understand this
relationship, I engage with the period of the Transición through a flexible,
representational relationship that allows different modes of signification.
While such a contextual method of engagement may not always be
historically accurate or comprehensive, the meaning of the past depends on
its connection to and with the present. The Transición has acquired increasing
relevance today precisely because of the way it is positioned in relation to
current events. As Michel-Rolph Trouillot writes in Silencing the Past, the
past is only the past because there is a present; ‘pastness’ is but a position
(15). I examine this ‘positioning’ in two separate ways: first, as a logical
continuation of the discussion regarding the suppressed and traumatic
memory of the Spanish Civil War and the repression of Franco’s dictatorship
and, second, as a generational experience that reflects an affective and
physical relationship with the past.
The written and visual texts I analyse in this book expose how the years
of the political transition, between the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975
and the victory of the Socialist Party in 1982, represents an unfinished (or
not quite understood) chapter in Spanish history. By collecting and blending
archival materials, personal recollections, and the cultural events of these
years, the texts produce a comprehensive memory of the Transición that
emphasises the notion of an open-ended task inviting intervention from
the present. These memories establish a relationship between history and
subjectivity that forces a continuation of the debate about the legacy of the
Spanish Civil War, a conflict that took place more than three quarters of
a century ago, yet remains closely connected to Spain’s ongoing political,
historical, and cultural conversation. The recollections I explore also reveal
a relationship with history based on affect, where past and present events
merge and permeate daily life. In this practice, historical referents are
turned into flexible signs that permit an endless renewal of the relationship
between present and past.
A couple of months after Suárez’s death, King Juan Carlos I announced
his abdication from the throne in favour of his son Felipe, who was crowned
4 Lost in Transition

Felipe VI on 19 June 2015. His coronation took place amid large protests
calling for the return of the republic. The royal family, embroiled in family
scandals that ranged from corruption charges to paternity suits, quietly
defended its place in the future of Spanish politics. Its claim to the country’s
destiny and its democratic identity was emphasised and strengthened in
numerous newspaper editorials and columns that intimately tied together
the result of the Transición and the person of King Juan Carlos I. Among those
who reinforced this association was novelist Javier Cercas, who went so far as
to declare that ‘[s]in el Rey no habría democracia’. 4 The departure of the king
has become part of a final effort to cement the foundational myths of Spain’s
democracy and its political project after the end of the Franco dictatorship.
In both the king’s speech and reports in the media, we witness an attempt
to put the still-contested memory of this time to rest.
In 1996, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán interviewed King Juan Carlos I on
the eve of Spain’s general elections—elections that signalled the revival of
the conservative Partido Popular (PP) that would, four years later, achieve
a ruling majority. The writer’s journey to meet the king is cast as a voyage
down memory lane, recounting a political adventure that began with the
death of Francisco Franco and ended, symbolically, with the failed coup
d’état of 1981, later known as ‘23-F’. When Vázquez Montalbán meets the
king, he mentions the subsequent media coverage of the 23-F that connected
Juan Carlos I with the events of that day. Listening to Juan Carlos I talk
about 23 February, however, Vázquez Montalbán comes to the realisation
that kings have no memory (nor, for that matter, do they write memoirs).
Unlike the president of a republic, a king cannot openly reveal his own
perspective. The writer concludes that perhaps kings are ‘condenados a no
tener memoria’ (Vázquez Montalbán 2006: 446). Almost two decades later,
the departure of the king confirmed this absence of memory and signalled
the end of a political cycle. The burden of the memory of the Transición, once
embodied in the political careers of Suárez and Juan Carlos I, now resides
elsewhere, but its recollection remains as urgent as ever.

4 In his column for El País, Cercas explains that ‘[l]a abdicación es, verosímilmente,
el último servicio fundamental que Juan Carlos I va a hacerle a este país’. The novelist
reviews the king’s three services to the country: his role in bringing democracy to
Spain, his intervention to stop the 23-F (a contended version of history, as I shall
discuss in this book), and, finally, his abdication. Cercas believes that the state of
Spain’s democracy is not only the fault of its founding fathers, who have certainly
made mistakes, but also of a collective ‘we’ to which his own generation belongs
(Cercas 2014).
 chapter one

Transitional Memories
Transitional Memories

Me quejo de que no hay ningún modelo nuevo y de que los modelos

viejos no sirven, para mí, que siempre me ha gustado cruzar el
charco de las transgresiones. Ahora no me queda espacio para
la transgresión, como antes. Y no somos tan mayores, ¿verdad?
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Un polaco en la corte del Rey Juan Carlos, 37

T he political period between the death of dictator Francisco Franco in

November 1975 and the victory of the Socialist Party (PSOE) in the
general election of 1982, widely known as the Transición, has been held up by
many as a model of successful political transformation from an authoritarian
regime to a democratic government. Yet criticisms of this period abound,
and discussions of the means and ends of this political and cultural
transformation continue. Previous historical, literary, and cultural studies
have emphasised the imperfect nature of the Transición’s accomplishments,
and many critics contend that essential political, socioeconomic, and cultural
changes, necessary to transform a post-dictatorial society, were not tackled
directly by the politicians of the time. Indeed, the 1980s are commonly
understood as years of disenchantment, trauma, and melancholy during
which Spaniards struggled with the vestiges of Franco’s regime.
More than 30 years after the Transición, recollections of this period are
beginning to resurface. The visual and literary texts I examine in this book
are representative of this renewed attention and, while the selection of works
I present is certainly not exhaustive, they share an important generational
imprint. The experiences of their creators, born into the same cohort,
can be traced through their complex cultural representations and critical
discussions of the (memory of the) Spanish Civil War, the dictatorship,
and the transition. These authors and artists are familiar with trauma and
understand the complexities and politics involved in the act of remembering.
Their work exposes the evolution that has taken place in the treatment of
6 Lost in Transition

memory, through which Spain’s political past has become a flexible referent
with multiple connotations with (and to) the present. The persistence of (and
the renewed insistence on) this connection to the present in recollections of
the past demands a closer look—one that takes into account the specificities
of a cohort of Spanish artists who came of age in the late 1970s and the
early 1980s. I use the term ‘evolution’ in this context to indicate the fluidity
of memory and to acknowledge the significance of the passage of time to
the production and proliferation of a generational experience. Throughout
the text, I couch this memory work as a ‘project’, one that is unfinished and
feels in need of completion. The detailed yet repetitive narration of the past
is a laborious and fiercely subjective enterprise.
The current relevance of the Transición can be characterised without
exaggeration as a ‘generational moment’. As Germán Labrador observes, the
years of political transformation in Spain exposed the tension felt by those
born after the war regarding the world to which their parents belonged:
‘allí, el franquismo, sus valores, sus estructuras, se sentían viejos, no sólo
ideológica sino también demográficamente’ (77). Recent recollections of
this period have shifted focus from the political to the personal, seeking
to narrate the behaviour, values, and belief systems of the Spanish people
during the years of the Transición. Considering that the impact of Spain’s
democratisation was felt most keenly by the youth, the men and women
of this generational group are particularly well situated to convey the
experiences of those years: how Spanish citizens of the time adopted and
exercised their freedoms and values even before they were recognised by law
(78).1 The recent work of journalists like Guillem Martínez, in his collection
CT o la Cultura de la Transición (2012), likewise articulates a generational
position. While the identification of a transitional culture bears certain
negative connotations (inasmuch as it inherently questions the ability of
the intellectuals and artists of that time to truly transform Spanish society),
it does articulate the idea that there exists a specific cohort affected by
these shortcomings. As it was part of the status quo and defended by the
political forces of the time, Spanish culture after the dictatorship was not so
vulnerable to change. The young generation of the Transición was the group
most constrained by the cultural practices of the past.
The Spanish population that came of age during the Transición first
came into focus as a generational collective through the work of historian

1 While it is hard to characterise this generation precisely, it can be described in

general terms as belonging to the middle class and as having been college educated
in the 1960s and 1970s. Labrador describes how the transition was felt (and lived)
within this group through the use of psychoactive drugs (psycopharmacology) (78).
 Transitional Memories 7

Pablo Sánchez León, himself part of this cohort. This group, he says, ‘no
se destacaron precisamente por el interés en reabrir al debate público
esas parcela de la historia reciente: no habían desde luego vivido los
acontecimientos y, como la mayoría de los españoles, atravesaron la
transición necesariamente en medio del olvido instituido acerca del tema’
(163).2 Despite having come of age in a society that was working to forget
and reject the memory of the Spanish Civil War, the members of this
cohort remained connected to the memories of this conflict through their
families and the political realities of post-war Spain. Shaped as they were
by recollections of the war, an understanding of the experiences of this
generation in confronting transition-era narratives can give crucial aid in
comprehending the ongoing debate about memory in contemporary Spain.
Traditionally, this debate has centred on the need for a more open, inclusive
history of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship—one that
acknowledges the experiences of those who suffered and perished during
these years. It is clear now that the Transición should be part of this inquiry,
and that the official account of the success of this political transformation
must be challenged too. The question to be asked is: ‘¿[h]ubo también otra
transición que ha quedado velada para el gran público y que, sin embargo,
llevan tal vez en su seno semillas para pensar otro futuro colectivo en
España?’ (Sánchez León: 164). The authorised version of the Transición has,
according to Sánchez León, erased the memory of emerging alternative
political initiatives. Now that this group has acquired a generational identity
and is bringing visibility to their collective experience, the possibility of
reclaiming these political experiences arises (165–66).
The memory of this particular cohort is especially significant because of
its connection and relevance to the present. The identity of this generation
is deeply connected to its memory of the Transición, ‘merced a la cual
actualizamos el valor que damos a unas cosas que creemos propias y
constitutivas de nuestra personalidad y nuestras actitudes’ and, more
importantly, ‘[s]eguimos viviendo allí, en la transición, nos guste o no’
(166–67). Spaniards today are being constantly and consistently ‘returned
to’ the past, to the ‘allí’ of the Transición, through newspaper headlines,
political speeches, works of art, and informal conversation. Despite the
prominence of these historical and cultural markers, the youth that lived
through the Transición years have not yet managed, as a group, to establish

2 Sánchez León defines the ‘generation of the transition’ as those born in the
mid-1950s and on, aged between 15 and 20 in 1975. They were able to vote during
the first democratic election of 1977 and, more representatively, in the second one
of 1979 (167–68).
8 Lost in Transition

a set of contextualised referents through which to process their ‘own’

transition (167). Recent recollections of the transitional years by members of
this cohort show a newfound interest in the legacy of the Spanish Civil War
and the Franco dictatorship, paired with a desire narratively to comprehend
the historical and cultural consequences of these experiences in the present.
In the years following Franco’s death, historians like Raymond Carr
and Juan Pablo Fusi suggested that one consequence of the dictatorship
was the creation of a generation of politically inexperienced people (Carr:
135; Fusi: 172). The government’s power and control had conditioned a
generation of lethargic Spaniards to believe that politics was reserved for a
minority (Merino and Song 2005: 14), though this political apathy was felt
and practised differently by different age groups. While most of the older
generation of Spaniards who lived through the (post-)war period wanted
to forget the past and welcomed a democratic Spain with a minimum of
upheaval, the younger generation of political activists (those identified with
the political opposition, the so-called ‘generation of ’68’) desired a change in
the country’s political institutions above all else. Caught between these two
groups, the youth of the Transición had their own separate interests, for which
they were often vilified: ‘[l]a libertad de orientación sexual, el consumo
responsable de drogas, la exploración en suma de libertades personales,
y sobre todo las manifestaciones públicas de éstas’ (Sánchez León: 174).
Indeed, even the political left did not know how to respond to these new
interests, reacting with a vehemence more typical of the conservative right.
Sánchez León picks up on this failure of cross-generational understanding,
calling for the rejection of stereotypes like ‘pasota’ to describe this cohort,
and attributing the political misunderstanding of the Transición youth to
a lack of representation and visibility in the newly ‘ordered’ society (176).
Remedying the invisibility of this generation is essential, he argues, because
‘con ellos comenzó una pauta de sociabilidad juvenil en España que continúa
esencialmente intacta, en la que se mezclan la falta de reconocimiento
y el estereotipo por un lado, y por otro una identidad radical cultural
y políticamente en un amplio sector de la juventud española’ (178). The
recollections of this group have the potential to transform Spain’s current
political landscape while challenging the official version of the Transición;
their memories offer ‘el nexo más firme para entroncar la cultura política
alternativa de nuestro presente con su propio pasado, en el que sólo llegó
a quedar larvada’ (Sánchez León: 179). It is particularly instructive to note
how Sánchez León expresses this need: ‘[d]esenterrar el olvido instituido a
tantos jóvenes de los años setenta es importante si aspiramos a librarnos
del encantamiento de los mitos de la transición’ (179). In other words, the
desire to break free from Spain’s transitional past, by giving this period
 Transitional Memories 9

the examination and remembrance it deserves, is in fact an aspiration for a

future where a possibility for alternative politics exists.3

In one of his early works on the subject of the Spanish Transición, historian
Paul Preston has remarked that the nature of this transformation, and the
crisis-torn politics that accompanied it, could only be properly understood
by paying attention to the internal contradictions of the Franco regime
during the last six years of the dictator’s life (1987: 2–3). Preston argues
that the dictatorship’s inability to respond to the demands for liberalisation
from different sectors of Spanish society was itself a catalyst for the change
that Spain experienced after Franco’s death. Furthermore, the deliberate
continuation of the divisions of the Spanish Civil War during the dictatorship
created an environment in which the liberal servants of the regime were
driven to engage in dialogue with the political opposition. Summarising
this situation, Preston states that ‘[m]ilitary interventionism, the virulence
of the extreme right and the violence of the Basques, obsolete industries
and uneven development have all conditioned Spain’s political trajectory
since 1975’ (1987: 3).
Even if the challenges the country faced were predominantly the product
of a worldwide recession, they nevertheless proved harder to resolve because
of the imbalances left by the dictatorship (Preston 1987: 3). The legacy of
the dictatorship takes centre stage in explanations of Spain’s trajectory
towards constitutional monarchy, and the politics of both the aperturismo
and the continuismo are understood as by-products of the Franco regime.
Although desire for change (liberalisation and democratisation) necessarily
went toe-to-toe with a desire to maintain the status quo, early readings
of the transition as a political process fraught with challenges quickly
gave way to an understanding of the past that focused primarily on its
ultimate democratic success. The tense living conditions in Spain in the
late 1970s and early 1980s—amid the violence of terrorism (both ETA and
GRAPO) and a deep economic recession that resulted in continued strikes
and demonstrations—were progressively downplayed, to be overwritten by
a narrative portraying the Spanish transition as an ideal model for other
non-democratic countries desiring political transformation. 4

3 This examination of the past is, as I argue in this book, significant more for the
remembering itself than the actual historical memories that this labour reveals.
4 ETA stands for the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque
Homeland and Freedom). GRAPO (Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de
Octubre), a splinter group from the Spanish Communist party, began its terrorist
activities in August 1975.
10 Lost in Transition

During this period of rosy recollection, criticism of the Transición mainly

focused on its handling of the legacy of the Spanish Civil War and the
dictatorship, as well as the creation of autonomous regions in the peninsula,
which was regarded simultaneously as a challenge to and a product of a
unified vision of the national territory. Despite the government’s effort to
close this problematic chapter of the country’s history, a view of the past as
‘unresolved’ has persisted. Attempts to equate the pain and loss suffered by
both sides of the conflict must be interpreted as an attempt to whitewash
the past; the repression experienced by the losing side of a war cannot be
overcome when there is no official avenue through which to discuss and
to legitimise this collective pain. Ultimately, then, the greatest obstacle to
achieving recognition of this suffering is, in fact, the widely accepted view
that the Spanish political transition was a democratic triumph.
Almost a quarter of a century after the Transición, Gregorio Alonso and
Diego Muro published a collection of essays on this political period in which
they revisited the idea of the ‘Spanish Model of Transition’. They traced the
efforts of past scholars to highlight the idyllic characteristics of the process of
political transition, the uniqueness of the Spanish case, the moderation and
compromises of the elites, the timing of the general elections, the drafting
of the Spanish constitution, and the rising levels of social mobilisation. By
highlighting these aspects, the authors argue, ‘Spain could set an example of
how moderation and commitment to democratic rules can lead to a peaceful
and gradual political transformation’ (1). According to Alonso and Muro,
politicians from Eastern Europe, including Hungary, Poland, Romania, and
Czechoslovakia, visited Spain and examined its political transition just as
did Latin American countries, especially Argentina and Chile (1–2). They
contend, however, that this interest in the Spanish model was paradoxical,
as ‘Spain did not follow a democratic road map’ (2). The triggering of the
process by an internal crisis (the death of Francisco Franco) and the absence
of a key figure capable of leading a political transformation meant that Spain
had been obliged to figure out its own political path despite the lack of a
stable democratic tradition (2).
Studies of the Transición has often emphasised the role of the negotiated
reform controlled by the political elite, including both the democratic
opposition and members of the Francoist apparatus who were open to
change. However, Alonso and Muro point out that this reading of ‘pact
making’ ignores the favourable conditions that allowed the transformation
to take place. They reject the imposed dichotomy between the importance
of the ruling elite and the role of the masses, arguing that this scenario
presents a false dilemma in democratisation theory (4). Political decisions
are not made in an historical vacuum and indeed, in Spain, ‘the number of
 Transitional Memories 11

terrorist acts, strikes and demonstrations had a considerable impact on the

agendas of the political elites’ (Alonso and Muro: 4). While the real effect
of mass action in the Spanish Transición remains to be explored—especially
given the lack of influence of trade unions and workers’ representations
in the Moncloa Pacts of 1977—Alonso and Muro consider their work an
opportunity to address new questions about the Spanish transition in new
contexts, including the context of memory studies (13).5
The politics of memory is intimately tied to societies’ need to ‘rework the
past in a wider cultural arena, both during the transitions and after official
transitional policies have been implemented or even forgotten’ (Barahona et
al.: 1–2). Truth commissions, trials, amnesties, and purges are part of possible
government-sponsored efforts, as are policies concerning compensation,
restitution, or reparation. This work is typically complemented by a variety
of unofficial and private socio-based initiatives promoted by human rights
organisations (HROs), churches, political parties, and other civil society
organisations (Barahona et al.: 1). Such efforts, which comprise part of
the political and ethical question of what a government does, should be
expected whenever nations with legacies of repression transition from
an authoritarian or totalitarian regime to democratic rule. In the case of
Spain, the lack of government involvement in these standard measures
during the Transición seems to expose, for many observers, a will to simply
forget the past.6 Negotiated transitions can have adverse consequences, as
‘institutional frameworks designed for periods of change consolidate a
way of engaging in politics and avoid open discussion of the most delicate
matters that can cause profound cleavages within society’ and ‘impose
serious limits on accountability’ (Aguilar 2001: 118). As argued early on by
Josep Maria Colomer and later reinforced by Aguilar, ‘avoiding retroactive
justice because the balance of forces after the death of Franco did not permit
it has allowed the political elite to refer abusively to the “legacy” argument
and to blame the authoritarian past for behaviour that is unacceptable
under a consolidated democracy’ (Colomer: 177; Aguilar 2001: 118). More
recent studies on the Transición, such as Omar G. Encarnación’s Democracy

5 An examination of the Moncloa Pacts of 1977 in the context of the political

changes taking place in Spain that year can be found in Omar Encarnación’s Spanish
Politics: Democracy after Dictatorship (36–39).
6 In Spain, for instance, the Amnesty Law of 1977 worked almost as an act of
institutionalised forgetting of the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship. In fact,
what happened in Spain does not mirror at all what happened in the mid-1980s
and the 1990s in Latin America, where ‘transitional truths’ and justice efforts were
carried out by ‘truth commissions’ (it was Latin America that gave rise to them) and
parliamentary or government-sponsored commissions (Barahona et al.: 4–5).
12 Lost in Transition

without Justice in Spain: The Politics of Forgetting, continue to insist on how ‘[t]
he rise and persistence of the politics of forgetting in Spain pose important
questions about how nations settle a “dark” past and the consequences of
the policies put in place to deal with that past for the emerging democratic
regime’ (Encarnación 2014: 4).

The period of Spanish history following the dictatorship has been identified
as one of ‘collective amnesia’. Analyses of this period have focused on
the limitations of the political reforms that took place in the late 1970s,
under which the sociocultural structures of the previous authoritarian
government were kept largely in place and the repression suffered by those
who fought on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War was largely
ignored. Throughout the Transición, Spaniards continued to struggle with the
memory of the war and the repression and violence suffered under Franco.
Even today, the memories of these experiences loom large as Spanish society
grapples with the disappearance of older generations who preserved direct
recollection and experience from this time. Ironically, the law proposed by
the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to remedy this
situation only served to reveal the structural flaws in the debate over the
legacy of the war, including the government’s determination to conflate
the violence unleashed during the war and the Franco dictatorship as
unavoidable outcomes of armed conflicts, equating victims and perpetrators
from both sides of the ideological divide.7
In Memory and Amnesia, Paloma Aguilar highlights the paradoxical nature
of the discourse surrounding the issue of memory and the Spanish Civil War.
The frequent media commentary on the lack of discussion about the war
contrasts oddly with the clear abundance of films and other artistic works
on this topic, as Aguilar points out. Indeed, the enduring collective belief
in the neglect of this topic signals ‘the existence of a traumatic collective
memory of the Civil War’ (Aguilar 2002: xix). In order to understand this
contradiction, Aguilar examines the type of war memories that existed
during the dictatorship and how these recollections played a crucial role in
the institutional design of the Transición (2002: 25). Among the documents
she scrutinises are the collection of newsreels and documentaries which
were compulsory in all commercial cinemas between 1943 and 1975 (and
voluntarily between 1976 and 1981), the NO-DO (Noticiarios y Documentales,
the State-controlled cinema newsreels), and the textbooks that were used
well into the years of the political transition. The memories of the war

7 I discuss the 2007 ‘Law of Historical Memory’ in detail in the next chapter.
 Transitional Memories 13

captured in these sources were, at least from the early 1960s onwards, set
against images and discourses of political stability, social peace, national
unity and harmony, and, especially, economic progress and rising standards
of living. This view of the past, promoted by the Francoist regime, was
used as a peace-making ploy to guarantee the dictatorship’s authority and
posterity. Aguilar argues that this use of war memories resulted in the
development of a collective trauma about the past:

Throughout this period the régime strove to legitimise both its

founding myth and its own survival; first, through a black-and-white
narration of the war in which it sought to justify the ‘need’ for the
Uprising and, second, by associating, over time, this memory of the
war with peace and progress, legitimising the regime further by
appealing to the results of its administration (performance-based
legitimacy) rather than its origins (origin-based legitimacy), although
without losing sight of the latter for an instant. Finally, Francoism
instilled a ferocious, obsessive and omnipresent fear of any repetition
of the Civil War, justifying the survival of the regime by alluding to
the alleged dangers that a liberal democracy could hold for Spain,
thus taking refuge behind a traumatic memory on which the ‘never
again’ consensus was already built. It is also true that other factors
were involved in this process, such as the very passing of time, factors
which helped to facilitate both forgiveness and an ability to forget.
(2002: 25–26)

In other words, when we consider the existence and propagation of war

memories under Franco, we must do so with a conscious awareness of the
ways in which those memories were evoked and in what context; for our
purposes, such a critical examination is doubly important because the
Francoist attitudes towards the war reflect a particular mnemonic style that
persisted in the press during the Transición (Aguilar 2002: 27). The presence
of this style of memory is detectable in the documentation from the Cortes,
parliamentary debates, legislation, the press, history books, memoirs, and
autobiographies, all of which paint a clear picture of how Spanish society
understood its past.
Aguilar’s work reveals how the collective memory of the Spanish Civil
War referenced during the years of the Transición was an ideological product
of Francoism. As such, this ‘socialised memory’—to use Aguilar’s term—
influenced the way the past was negotiated during Spain’s transition to
democracy. The trauma connected to this memory served as a basis for
consensus-building after Franco’s death: negotiation about the past boiled
14 Lost in Transition

down to the idea of ‘never again’ (Aguilar 2002: 26). Neither side of the
government—the heirs of the Francoist regime and their political opponents
now shaping Spanish politics for the first time—ever differed significantly
in their relationship with the past. The persistence of this socialised memory,
crafted under the dictatorship, explains why the Law of Amnesty of 1977 was
able to homogenise the past, equating victims and perpetrators from both
sides of the ideological divide.8
The Spanish people’s traumatic relationship with the Civil War has
subsequently functioned as a point of origin for other traumas, endlessly
complicating Spain’s relationship with the past. The trauma manufactured
under Francoism was embraced (or perhaps, more precisely, inherited)
by the politicians of the Transición who, in turn, inflicted more trauma.
The enduring pain created by this process became apparent when the
political left, after decades of political struggle and persecution under
the dictatorship, proved itself incapable of delivering on promised social
changes during the years of political transition. The politics of consensus
based on the idea of ‘never again’ meant the continued silencing of the
losing side of the war; Spaniards were limited to mourning the lost
opportunities of this time.
Ironically, the narrative that grew out of this forced compromise was
one of success, in which the democratic transformation of Spain was hailed
as a political model for other nations. Given the troubled nature of this
change, however, it is no wonder that despite the triumphant rhetoric of the
Transición, the 1980s saw the emergence of a new discourse critical of this
political transformation.
The disillusionment or ‘desencanto’ that followed the euphoria of political
change was perfectly captured by Pedro Almodóvar in his film ¿Qué he
hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984). The story of Gloria (Carmen Maura), who
struggles to get ahead cleaning buildings in Madrid while addicted to
amphetamines, reflected clearly the stark reality of many Spaniards whose
lives remain unchanged despite the political and cultural transformation
taking place at this time. Gloria’s abusive husband, her openly gay teenage
son whom she gives up for adoption to a paedophile dentist, her older
son addicted to cocaine, and her crazy mother-in-law (Chus Lampreave)
offer snapshots of the hardships suffered by the Spanish people. While
the social circumstances in which these characters live seem to reflect a
different era, opportunities or possibilities for change never seem to come
to fruition. Gloria’s newfound independence, for instance, is threatened by

8 A reading of this amnesty law from 1977 in relation to Spain’s current politics
is offered in Helen Graham’s The War and its Shadow (147–49).
 Transitional Memories 15

her conservative and violent husband. The new availability of recreational

drugs and open sexuality in post-Franco Spain only brings to light the
continued asymmetry of power dynamics and does little to alleviate Gloria’s
pain. Even when, at the film’s end, she overcomes her husband’s repression
by accidentally killing him and her mother-in-law leaves the city with one
of her sons, Gloria’s future remains uncertain at best.
Almodóvar’s early critical view of the transition, reflected in this film, has
again become relevant in the recent revisiting of this period by a younger
generation of Spaniards. What the writers and filmmakers I discuss in this
book rediscover and recreate is a time of uncertainty, fear, and violence
erased by the rhetoric of political success. Their work allows us to re-examine
the endurance of this critical perspective and the way these experiences are
recovered through personal and intimate connections with the present.
Critics of contemporary Spanish culture over the years have remarked
on the country’s complicated relationship with the past. Their works often
analyse the tendency towards wilful silence (or amnesia) in contemporary
fiction, visual arts, and film. Drawing on concepts like melancholia, trauma,
and violence in their theorising, critics have argued for a reading of the
Transición as a symptomatic period during which the suppressed memories
of the past (of both the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship) were seeking
means of expression. This work, as a body, reveals that the most significant
legacy of the Franco dictatorship was its dysfunctional relationship with the
past. Through censorship, oppression, triumphalist rhetoric, propaganda, and
violence, the Francoist regime turned the past into a taboo for generations
of Spaniards. Normalising Spain’s collective relationship to the past should
have been part of the process of democratisation, but the government failed
to address this need. The political transformation thus came to be better
known as a ‘pacto del olvido’, a compromise based on forgetting, crystallised
by the passing of the 1977 amnesty law that effectively forbade any historical
discussion under the guise of governmental legitimacy.
Within this context of silence, Alberto Medina reflects on the emptiness
that surrounds the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), a symbol of
Francoism and a mausoleum for both the dictator and the martyr of the
Falangist cause, José Antonio. He ponders the Spanish ‘ejercicio de olvido’
and the vacuum that surrounds this symbolic space, asking whether ‘¿[e]s
esa invisibilidad la mera afirmación de un olvido real o quizá el indicio
de una autoimpuesta disciplina?’ (14). Medina highlights the systematic,
symbolic elimination of representations of the dictator as pointing to a
clear desire to control and even exterminate the memory of Franco (14–15).9

9 For Medina, this process of forgetting responds to a process in which ‘El

16 Lost in Transition

He draws a parallel with the apparent amnesia that struck Germany

after the end of the Second World War, focusing on the work of Theodor
Adorno, who explains this lack of memory not as absence but rather as
masked permanence. Medina argues that melancholia itself is a critical tool,
an instrument of power that inhabits the space left by an affective void
(16–17). He explains the political transformation that took place in Spain as
a process of co-optation: ‘[f]rente a la “ruptura democrática,” propuesta en
principio por las fuerzas de la oposición, la cual habría supuesto una total
fractura y discontinuidad con las instituciones del régimen, se impondrá
la “ruptura pactada” un proceso de reconversión desde dentro llevado a
cabo a través de una política de consenso’ (17). For Medina, the loss of the
Caudillo represents the moment at which the continuity of the political
structure of Francoism (along with its institutions) was guaranteed.
The effort to craft a new Spanish identity—one that had shed its former
ties to an outdated dictatorship and ideology—materialised in the writing
of a new constitution, but this effort, too, ultimately failed to achieve a
clean break from Spain’s past and its related trauma. Medina argues that
the new democratic constitution of 1978 was nothing more than apocryphal
writing, a project hijacked by an elite that, despite its message of democratic
participation and the rhetoric of consensus, only served to confirm its own
view and priorities regarding Spain’s new political (and legal) structure
(56–57). In particular, he finds an inextricable connection between the
notion of ‘consensus’ and ‘disenchantment’: a narrative of utopic harmony
projected by those in power in which all is negotiable and where everything
can be discussed in order to reach a compromise. The problem is that, in
undertaking such a process, the past is dissolved and, ultimately, erased
(Medina: 57–58). The 1977 Moncloa Pacts and the 1978 constitution become
representative gestures, part of the civic attempt to cleanse the country of
past linguistic and political practices, as if the new government were created
out of (or based on) thin air (Medina: 57–58).10 Similarly, the transformation
of the media landscape through the elimination of censorship was taken

pasado es modelado a imagen del presente’ (14). Recovered representations of Franco

depict him minimised and domesticated: playing cards, talking with his wife,
etc. In tracing the thread of this restoration, Medina highlights Manuel Vázquez
Montalbán’s Autobiografía del general Franco (1992) and Fernando Vizcaíno Casas’s Y
al tercer año resucitó (1978), as well as the films Madregilda (Dir. Francisco Regueiro,
1993), Espérame en el cielo (Dir. Antonio Mercero, 1988), and Dragon Rapide (Dir. Jaime
Camino, 1986).
10 See Song (2005: 223–25) for an examination of the 1978 constitution and the
later effort to guarantee its untouchability by invoking the concept of constitutional
patriotism.
 Transitional Memories 17

as further evidence of freedom; again, however, this apparent transparency

was only an illusion.11
Following a similar train of reasoning, Cristina Moreiras-Menor
interrogates the end of Francoism by highlighting the desire, present
in many works published during the Transición, to recover the past. She
analyses this desire as a reflection of the need to make history a part of
one’s own story: ‘a través de una puesta en duda, de una manifiesta y
dolorosa incertidumbre, de que la experiencia del presente, la realidad
contemporánea, está constituida sobre las ruinas precisamente de unos
fantasmas que siguen vivos y sin enterrar’ (17).12 Examining the legacy of
the dictatorship within the narrative of freedom and modernity that marked
the arrival of democracy in Spain, Moreiras-Menor argues that the spectacle,
trauma, and violence that characterises the works of this time is connected
to the way Spanish history has been narrated and silenced since Franco’s
death. She uses the term ‘herida’, an open wound, to point to the experience
of the contemporary Spanish subject: a body in crisis that rises from a world
of contradictions, ‘de la coexistencia de modos antagónicos de articular la
realidad’ (19). This lack of closure is also brought up by Joan Ramon Resina,
who argues that the remembering that took place during the years of the
Transición was already tainted: ‘[f]orgiveness implies forgetting and starting
anew; whereas to rehabilitate is to bring forth prostrate memories of good
character and intrinsic worth. In either case, a change of consciousness
is involved, not so much of the subject but of those who forget or else
reconstruct the master narrative …’ (2000: 8). Given that the discourse on
political transformation is ‘overwhelmingly a matter of narrative’, Resina
argues that a better way of approaching this period ‘would be to study it in
reference to what it leaves out, what substracts [sic] from what we know from
experience or what can be learned from less popular and more inaccessible
sources (2000: 9).13

11 Paul Julian Smith offers a different reading of the Valle de los Caídos: ‘[w]hile
Alberto Medina deplores the neglect of the Valle as a sign of historical amnesia, I
would celebrate that neglect as proof of Spanish culture’s successful engagement
with or working through the past. I thus try to examine nostalgia sympathetically
in this book (to read it for its complex fusion of time, space, and feeling)’ (2006: 9).
12 For Moreiras-Menor, the erasure of memory (or history) results in violence,
which can be read as a lasting trace of those deletions that become manifest in
later generations. Her study demonstrates how this violence, as a new cultural
expression, thrives in a postmodern and democratic Spain where the hegemony of
the market and mass media rules (17).
13 In this case, Resina is referring to works of fiction published after the end of
the dictatorship. The question of the legacy of Francoism was tackled in Traces of
Contamination (2005), which I co-edited with Eloy E. Merino. In this collection of
18 Lost in Transition

To talk about trauma, melancholia, or lack of closure is to talk about

memory. In post-Franco Spain, memories have been described as spectres
that continue to haunt the present. Jo Labanyi works with ‘history as
hauntology’ to examine the films and fictions produced between 1970
and 2000 and to pose the following question: ‘what does a society—in
particular, Spanish society of the transition and since—do with history;
that is, what does it do with the ghosts of the past?’ (2000: 65). When a
society that imagines itself to be young and modern is confronted with
the burdens of its past, the outcomes of negotiation with its memories (or
ghosts) can be varied: they can be refused, expressed through melancholia
(as analysed by Medina), or be acknowledged—and it is only the latter path
that allows one to live with its traces (Labanyi 2000: 65–66). Labanyi is,
perhaps, the first scholar to clearly identify these ghosts. She names them
as the victims of the past who have disappeared from social space and can
only appear in virtual spaces (2000: 66).14 In her analyses of works by Víctor
Érice, Julio Llamazares, Juan Marsé, and others, she finds these ghosts in
ruins: spaces that are useful not only to dig up the past, but to conjure up
its spectres (2000: 71).
Labanyi’s early search for ghosts has taken a literal turn amid recent
debates concerning the exhumation of mass Civil War graves demanded by
relatives searching for the physical remnants of their kin. The creation of
civil associations, such as the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria
Histórica, and the public debate around the ‘Ley de Memoria Histórica’
(Law of Historical Memory) proposed by the PSOE in 2004 and approved by
Congress in 2007, reveals that the key issue at stake in this dispute is the
memory of the violence of the Civil War and the dictatorship. As I discuss
in the next chapter, this remembering—once kept a private matter thanks
to Francoist repression—has now started to enter the public sphere (Labanyi
2008b: 119–20). As Noël Valis points out, this memory is inevitably linked
to conflict: the highly politicised rhetoric of the Spanish Civil War focuses
on ‘what was at stake at this war … the very identity of a nation and its

essays, we aimed to examine the traces of the concrete experiences of Francoism

that shaped a great part of Spain’s contemporary history and culture (11–26).
14 Labanyi connects the idea of ghosts with ‘spaces where the possibility of
collectivity and communication is denied or at best curtailed’ (2000: 67). Films like
El Sur (Dir. Víctor Érice, 1983) and El espíritu de la colmena (Dir. Víctor Érice, 1973) or
novels like Julio Llamazares’s Luna de lobos (1985) and Escenas de cine mudo (1993) and
the works of Antonio Muñoz Molina are read for their geographical displacements as
well as for their feeling of loss. Another important work that embodies this emotion
is Basilio Martín Patino’s Canciones para después de una guerra (1976) (Labanyi 2000:
70–71).
 Transitional Memories 19

people. The war was a battle over the future history of the country and
who would represent that history’ (11). In the aftermath of the war and the
official Francoist version of this history, the past is a disputed territory filled
with subjective recollections (Valis: 11)—and, ghostly or not, the memories
connected to this past are highly contested and continue to haunt Spain’s
present.15
Beneath the current and ongoing criticism of the conservative PP’s fiscal
policy during the financial crisis that began in 2008 and the tension-filled
relationship between the central and regional governments in the peninsula,
there remains a thread of general dissatisfaction traceable to the country’s
failure to deal with its memories of the past. From this perspective, ‘memory’
in Spain has not only become a critical term, but a paradoxical one whose
constant presence actually exposes its complete absence. This contradiction
is compelling for it allows us a closer look into how memories—transformed,
mediated, and manipulated—circulate in contemporary Spain. While some
recollections are deployed to misconstrue the past (for instance, in the
revisionist works of writers like Pío Moa or César Vidal), the majority
are perceived as morally grounded and requiring no justification. These
memories are valued for their ability to recover stories and even material
traces of those who were disappeared during the war and the dictatorship,
revealing a situation that, according to historian Paul Preston, demands
moral reparation (2004: 20).
While these stories are welcomed into the collective consciousness, their
continued presence also signals a structural condition that both creates the
need for and sustains the production of recovered memories. Curiously, it is
the Transición itself that, despite rejecting the past ideologically, has enabled
the continuation of this production of memory. Resina argues that political
change in Spain was not about revolution but about obeying the rules of
the capitalist market. For him, it was the market’s ‘implacable logic that
pushed Spain, from the sixties on, out of the autarchy and into reformist
policies’—towards a position that deemed history, seen as a commodity, to
be old-fashioned and irrelevant (2000b: 93). The transition worked as the
‘special effect (in the cinematographic sense too) of a collective installation
in a present that wished itself absolute: the present of the market’ (Resina
2000b: 93). The constant sense of a present era driven incessantly by change
also established a particular relationship with history. The past was to be

15 Ángel Loureiro, for instance, has criticised this interest in the past for creating
a public discourse based on victimhood, ignoring the real events that took place
during the Francoist dictatorship and its aftermath. I will return to his work in the
next chapter.
20 Lost in Transition

amputated as the needs of the present demanded, but, as Resina points out,
‘the battleground for remembrance is not so much the field of historiography
as the everyday experiences through which the collective memory is
shaped, reformed, or erased’ (2000b: 104). Logically, once Spain had been
integrated into the world market, memories of the Spanish Civil War and
the dictatorship should have become superfluous and even counterpro-
ductive (Resina 2000b: 104), yet publication about both is still going strong,
and despite many judicial and political failures involving family members
searching for traces of disappeared family members, the news and stories
about their suffering (and, ultimately, death) have not vanished. Instead,
these memories have created an industry of their own 16 —or, to put it
differently, these battles have become part of an everyday experience. As part
of the country’s current political and cultural debate, the Transición drives
and sustains the production of the memory of a troubled past.
The study of memory in contemporary Spain has generated an extensive
discussion on how the process of recollection works and the different
forms in which it endures. For example, there has been an insistence
on distinguishing between historical and collective memory. The former,
according to Resina, is a specialised recollection based on research and
documentation, which should be ‘treated as witnesses of events and must
be scrupulously reconstructed before their meaning and validity can
be formally established’ (2000b: 83–84). In contrast, collective memory,
following Maurice Halbwachs’s definition, should be understood as
a collection of different memories across generations and social groups
(38–39). José F. Colmeiro’s definition of memory is more inclusive and
comprises all experiences, traditions, practices, rituals, and myths shared
by a collective group (17–18). The range of this memory, however, exposes a
dilemma detected earlier by Resina, who argues that multiplicity, assumed
to rely on historical truth, only evinces an ‘erosion of the past’ (2000b: 84).
Colmeiro echoes this belief in his writing on the ‘memory crisis’ in Spain.
For him, historical memory implies historical consciousness, a part of a
collective event in which memory is activated individually (18). What is
absent in Spain, then, is the link between memory at the individual level
and memory as part of a collective historical consciousness.
Talking about a memory crisis in Spain is, indeed, another way of pointing
to the lack of connection between subjective and institutional memories.

16 Memory, in this sense, fell prey to the logic of the capitalist market in
which memories themselves have become commodities. Many critics, including the
aforementioned Loureiro, have pointed to this overproduction and consumption of
memories.
 Transitional Memories 21

This absence is often explained by what happened during the years of

the Transición; as described above, the political amnesty granted to those
involved in the previous regime led to a wilful act of forgetting which in turn
resulted in fragmented memories, private memories, and the replacement of
memory with nostalgia (Colmeiro: 18–19). Many critics have identified this
deliberate erasure of history as the impetus behind the excessive number of
first-person accounts about the past in contemporary Spain.
More recently, Txetxu Aguado has raised the issue of the exhaustion
brought on by the abundant and repetitive nature of these works, observing
that the memories contained in these historical works seem emptied of real
experiences. Aguado contends that the ever-present, self-congratulatory
memories of the successful Transición preclude the existence of other
recollections, and thus prevent the promulgation of an alternative history
(12–13). As Colmeiro explains, the Transición has come to serve as an essential
historical reference point in the production of collective memory, as a
foundational myth on which the present has been built (25). While I agree
with Colmeiro’s and Aguado’s assessment of the preferential treatment of
the Transición as a site of memory and a point of origin for Spain’s present
national identity, I also believe that we need to find a new way to engage
with contemporary Spanish cultural production about the recent past.
Rather than emphasising the referential value of these recollections as
accurate, accountable memories, we should consider their affective value. It
is affect, rather than truthful representation, that insists on, and provides,
an enduring connection between past and present. By conceiving the private
as an extension of the public—by examining how subjects experience the
public privately—we can appreciate how subjective experiences become
relevant collectively and glimpse the affective structure that sustains
this connection. The cultural and political circumstances that reinforce
affective structures teach us how to produce and preserve meaning in our
contemporary world.
The perception of a crisis of memory in Spain has led critics like Ulrich
Winter to examine the notion of ‘performative memory’. Winter argues that
the necessity to recover memories has transformed knowledge of the past
into a component of present reality (249). In other words, a present-day
form of the past (‘presentificación’, or what Winter calls the ‘ontologización
de la memoria’) is created in order to ensure that the past becomes an
essential part of the present (249–51). The performance of this past-in-the-
present is invoked by Winter to explain the current social and judicial
activism around the memory and legacy of the Spanish Civil War and the
Franco dictatorship. Likewise, cultural representations through literary
texts have started ‘performing’ as historiographical studies (Winter: 253).
22 Lost in Transition

While continuing to regard the historical content of literary texts as a

‘contribution’ to the recovery of the past, Winter correctly recognises how
the treatment of memory in contemporary Spain has changed. Perhaps this
shift also challenges the way in which historical recollections are currently
understood.

If a ‘crisis of memory’ can point to the absence of memory, it can also suggest
its distortion. After all, there are always competing interests when it comes
to producing and circulating memories of the past and ‘experiences attended
by the powerful social institutions are likely to be better preserved than
experiences less favoured by rich institutional rememberers’ (Resina 2000b:
85). Discussion about historical amnesia in Spain, then, is not so much
about the actual loss of the past but, as already discussed, its politics of
memory: ‘[t]he dispute is really over which fragments of the past are being
refloated and which are allowed to sink’ (Resina 2000b: 86). The Transición
played an important political role in the production and preservation of
past experiences. As an active moment of ‘forgetting’, this period has
become synonymous with progress, democracy, and the normalisation
of the previously abnormal, signalling a need for reconciliation and the
manufacturing of a broad consensus (Resina 2000b: 88).17 However, as
Resina notes, it also demonstrates how ‘just as memory reaches back over
relatively long stretches of time, its dissipation does not occur overnight’
(2000b: 91). To put it differently, though a discourse of change prevailed
during the transition, there lingered beneath it a host of memories not yet
fully processed. This contradiction explains, on the one hand, the persistence
of memories about the past and, on the other, the time lag between the
critical discourse of the Transición of the 1980s and the current recollections
of this era. These memories did not dissipate, but instead turned into what
I have characterised as ‘memory projects’. The years of Spain’s political
transformation were opened for examination, part of an unfinished task.
In fact, the Transición now shares the same status as the Spanish Civil War
and the Franco dictatorship: all three eras have become inexorably linked
to troubled memory, deployed at will to explain and to criticise any aspect
of Spain’s current political or cultural situation.

17 Resina sees the election of the Partido Popular in 1996 as the final moment of
respite for democracy: ‘Casting his party as a political Schlemil, he [Vice President
of the Government Francisco Álvarez-Cascos] hoped that no one would notice that
it was precisely the Partido Popular’s coming to power that finally put temptations
of unconstitutional adventures to rest’ (2000b: 90).
 Transitional Memories 23

It is too obvious to state that the ongoing memory of the Transición is

flanked by many different narratives. Faced with the official account of this
political process (sanctioned by the government and other interested political
parties to offer an historically cohesive and coherent recollection), critical
accounts of this experience, often originating from academic circles, have
insisted on offering an alternative account.18 As this process has continued,
the term Transición itself has come to encompass a wider significance. Germán
Labrador, for instance, has argued that the term Transición has come to imply
not just a process of political (and institutional) change, but a collective will
that unites the habits, languages, and values of a time. As such, it belongs
to a larger story that contains not only the end of the Francoist world but
a projection into the present and into the future, ‘en esa ampliación del
marco de referencia se ha ido disolviendo una historia personalista, muy
vinculada a los artífices de la ingeniería política, en favor de una genealogía
ciudadana, colectiva de todo ese proceso’ (Labrador: 64). Debunking the idea
that it was a time of dialogue and consensus-building, Labrador insists on
adopting a comprehensive approach to the Transición that acknowledges the
continuation of Francoist social, political, and cultural structures. Politics
during the transition, according to Labrador, worked more like a simulacrum,
a stage where the spectacle of democracy was performed (70).19 Ultimately,
Labrador’s reading of this time echoes the same sense of loss and trauma
already examined, traceable in the ghosts of memory present in the works
of artists like Juan Goytisolo, Carlos Saura, Jaime Chávarri, and Leopoldo
María Panero. In particular, these works reveal how the past is summoned
by a sense of loss that eventually replaces memory, projecting instead an
alternative construction of history that thrusts ‘la lógica histórica de lo
político hacia el terreno del imaginario, hacia el cuerpo simbólico social’
(Labrador: 70–71).20 The lack of accountability in politics is questioned, thus,
in works such as Almodóvar’s ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984) or

18 Germán Labrador Méndez identifies Victoria Prego’s work in Así se hizo la

transición (1995) as embodying the officially sanctioned view (63).
19 He builds on Eduardo Subirats’s Después de la lluvia: sobre la ambigua modernidad
española (1993) to offer a critical view of the Transición.
20 Labrador argues that these works shift the discussion from the discipline
of history to that of literary and cultural studies. The works of Goytisolo, Saura,
Chávarri, and Panero represent a confrontation between the official history and an
alternative one: ‘Frente a las operaciones colectivas de la memoria, amparadas por
una fuerte producción de textualidad legitimadora, en el estudio de la producción
de algunos intelectuales y algunos artistas será posible encontrar miradas diferentes
al proceso histórico que, lejos de ceder al olvido, se edifiquen en la reflexión sobre
el proceso transicional’ (71).
24 Lost in Transition

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Pepe Carvalho detective series. These fictional

recreations of history insist on the need to revisit the past as an integral part
of our cultural and personal identity.
This need to revisit the past foregrounds the relevance of our discussion
of generational experience and identity for it highlights the connections
a group can share, consciously and subconsciously; whether in terms
of worldview or memory of past events, a cohort, despite its individual
differences, is affected temporally and historically in comparable ways. This
resemblance, in turn, leads to common cultural or political practices. In terms
of aesthetics, the authors examined in this book reflect a strong preference
for storytelling and the use of subjective voice and experience. They also
express a clear faith in the value of historical documentation despite their
awareness of the infinite possibilities for its manipulation. Historiographic
veracity, in turn, gives way to private ties to the past, where the work of
memory is not focused on recovering stories but on converting historical
experiences into personal ones. One could argue that this obsession with
narration, with getting the story ‘right’, is symptomatic of a contentious
relationship with the past. Yet it could also be viewed as the consequence
of confronting a past as yet unburied. As Cristina Moreiras-Menor argues
in Cultura herida (2002), a past that remains unresolved prevents trauma
from being overcome, as it prevents the victims of trauma from imagining
or engaging with the idea of a more hopeful future. It is difficult not to
identify a sense of impasse in these recent works about the Transición—
yet this impasse itself translates into a greater interest in the present, a
perspective from which one can attempt to make peace with the past. At
the same time, the difficulty of achieving such a resolution is palpable in
these works and in the uncertainty they express about the future. As we
shall see, all of the works examined embody this conundrum in a very
particular way: the memories recreated in them do not express any doubt
about the past, but approach it methodically and exhaustively, driven by an
impulse to establish a clear connection between past conflicts and present
troubles. The uncertainty that arises from this quest is not about the past
(even if an accurate recollection of its experiences proves to be impossible)
or even the present, but always about the future. This is, for example, the
case for Benjamín Prado’s Operación Gladio (2011), which I discuss in the last
chapter of the book. The investigative journalism undertaken by the female
protagonist paints a very detailed account of the murder of the lawyers in
the 1977 Atocha massacre. The connection between this violent past and
the present is clear; the ambiguity in the novel directs the reader towards a
suspended or uncertain future, one hanging by a thread, where all depends
on the final outcome of digging into the past.
 Transitional Memories 25

The favouring of subjective recollections over historical facts is a strong

feature in the recent works of memory about the Transición. Perhaps because
these memories are constantly challenged, these recollections insist on
research, documentation, journalistic investigation, and—above all—on a
personal and direct experience that connects past and present. Rather than
focusing on the material traces of the past—lost photographs, forgotten
objects—these recollections manufacture an affective relationship with
the past, one in which the present is shaped emotionally by previous
experiences. While the persistence of memory can be understood as the
result of repression—the trauma of the Spanish Civil War and the violence
of the dictatorship—it also offers the opportunity to understand a particular
period of history through the lens of what Raymond Williams called a
‘structure of feeling’. For Labanyi, this means the possibility of creating
new relationships with the past from the present (2000: 70). In Juan Marsé’s
use of ‘aventis’ in Si te dicen que caí (1973) and in Basilio Martín Patino’s
use of archival material in Canciones para después de una guerra (1976), we
find alternative stories of the past, full of trivia and pieces of information
that send tendrils into the present, exposing the remaining traces of
history (Labanyi 2000: 70). In contrast, the ‘structure of feeling’ provided
by the recollection of the transition years examined here focuses not on
the traces or remnants of the past but on the emotions attached to its
memories. Memories, in other words, are not important for what they recall
or represent, but for the emotional connection they allow.
I begin my investigation of the shift in this referential relationship in
the next chapter by examining the debate over the 2007 ‘Law of Historical
Memory’ and how memory in Spain has been forced into private spaces. The
perception of memory as a personal concern has shaped the social structures
that sustain recollections of the past. The privileging of subjective accounts
results in a narrative charged with emotions and couched in an intimate
view of the past. I begin my discussion of ‘affect’ as a general framework for
examining how these memories are produced and how they endure socially
and culturally.
Each of the subsequent chapters provides specific theoretical approaches
to analysing the affect found in the works examined in this book. I begin
with a close look at the dominant historical account of the transformation
of Spain as one of change and political success. Missing from this narrative
of the Transición is the political instability and popular apprehension about
the future of the country in the years surrounding the death of Franco.
The key political event that helped to forge this view was the failed coup
d’état of Colonel Antonio Tejero on 23 February 1981. I revisit this episode
by examining Javier Cercas’s critically acclaimed non-fiction essay Anatomía
26 Lost in Transition

de un instante (2009); two miniseries for television, 23-F: El día más difícil del
Rey (Dir. Silvia Quer, 2009), 23-F: Historia de una traición (Dir. Antonio Recio,
2009); and the feature-length film adaptation of the event, 23-F: La película
(Dir. Chema de la Peña, 2011). In these works, the events of 23 February 1981
are shaped through narratives that rely on archival materials and personal
experiences to document the hours in which the Spanish government was
held hostage by Colonel Tejero, while King Juan Carlos and the Spanish
military manoeuvred to bring the coup to an end. I suggest how the 23-F
has been transformed into a sign, a Peircean index that sustains multiple
significations.
I continue with an analysis of the television series Cuéntame cómo pasó
(2001–) and La chica de ayer (2009), which are good examples of how the
past is transformed into a memory project to be narrated, remembered, and
recreated. They also illustrate the important role that the popular media play
today in shaping a person’s view of the past and the memories of historical
events. In the same chapter, I highlight the way popular culture mediates
an affective relationship with the past, borrowing from the concept of media
memory. Finally, I examine four novels about the Transición published in
2011. Their authors, all born between 1960 and 1963, experienced these years
as young adults. I examine the experiences and memories of the Transición
as narrated in Benjamín Prado’s Operación Gladio (2011), Ignacio Martínez
de Pisón’s El día de mañana (2011), Antonio Orejudo’s Un momento de descanso
(2011), and Rafael Reig’s Todo está perdonado (2011). In a close reading of
these novels, I consider new ways of analysing this continued obsession
with the past.
These chapters offer a renewed perspective on the recent memories of
the Transición. Rather than focusing on the critical view these works may
express about the politics of the time, I have chosen to closely examine their
positioning towards the past. Thus, I do not engage with these narratives in
terms of their depiction of important political events of that time, such as
the tension between the central government of Spain and its culturally and
linguistically diverse regions. Equally, I do not address directly the gender
politics of the Transición or the important women’s rights that were hard
won during those years. All of these events remain in the background of the
recollections I discuss in the book; although they are important historical
and political moments, they are not the focus of these narratives. Instead,
what these narratives bring forward is the subjective relationship of the
authors with the events they depict and recollect. Ultimately, I argue for
the importance of political and cultural context in recent recollections of
the Transición; I show how these works are deeply connected to the ongoing
political, historical, and cultural debate about the legacy of the Civil War and
 Transitional Memories 27

the political and economic crisis in contemporary Spain.21 The generational

interest in this period has developed into an exercise of affect in which
the past is transformed into a political present and personal feelings and
individual experiences replace ideology. While reading the experiential
can be a messy endeavour, it opens new lines of inquiry. The intersection
of memory and emotion reveals how the latter makes the former relevant
in our present.
In Radical Justice, Luis Martín-Cabrera draws attention to the sheer number
of academic works that have been published about cultural memory and
amnesia, while simultaneously reflecting on how this public interest has
been insufficient to actually overcome that amnesia or come to terms with
the traumatic past. He explains this failure by pointing out that ‘the struggle
for the recuperation of historical memory is trapped between the inability
or unwillingness of the “new” democratic state to assume responsibility
for its violent origins and because of the rapid commodification of memory
via the spectacular action of the media’ (9). To avoid the effects of market
commodification and the politics of oblivion, Martín-Cabrera chooses not to
consider memory from an abstract, neutral vantage point, ‘but rather in a
battlefield of multiple meanings that affect the present. As a collective social
construction, memory is anchored in economic realities and thus subject to
different power pressures, including but not limited to the vested interests
of the state and the spectacular logic of the market’ (9). The sheer complexity
of memory’s effect on the present is reflected in the brief review on the topic
I have offered thus far. The debate about its meaning, social relevance, and
political manipulation continue to shape the way memory is understood
in Spain. As this discussion is increasingly connected to current events, as
well as a future conditioned by the uncertainties of an unresolved past, it
is important to continue to examine the complicated relationship between
past and present in contemporary Spanish society. It is this perspective that
drives my focus on the memories produced around the political transition
in Spain.

21 A direct relationship between the period of the Transición and Spain’s economic
crisis is explored by Bryan Cameron in ‘Spain in Crisis: 15-M and the Culture of
Indignation’, in the recent special issue of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (2015).
 chapter two

Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past

Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past

Insisto en que, a mi juicio, hoy en España no puede hablarse de otra

cosa: hoy vivimos en un momento especial, donde la referencia a la
Transición, explícita o implícita es constante … Es decir, lo que hoy nos
preocupa está ligado a lo que ocurrió entonces, a treinta años vista de
aquel proceso de los años centrales de la década de los setenta. Pero
esta percepción empieza hoy un evidente proceso de cambio.
Julio Aróstegui Sánchez, ‘La Transición a la democracia,
“matriz” de nuestro tiempo presente’, 37

I n examining current recollections about the Transición, it is crucial to

understand, first, how memories are constructed and transmitted, and
second, how they are embodied, forging deep connections between personal
and collective experiences. One of the main criticisms of the political
transition, as I show in the previous chapter, concerns the lack of discussion
about the legacy of the Spanish Civil War and the violence that continued
after its end. The so-called ‘peaceful’ years over which Franco’s dictatorship
presided were not the result of consensus or reconciliation. As historians
have documented, Franco ruled over a divided society in which the regime’s
opponents suffered death, incarceration, torture, or exile.1 Even those who
did not actively resist the regime but belonged to the losing side of the war
lived in constant fear of retaliation. In Spain, the end of the dictatorship did
not bring a Truth and Reconciliation Commission but a consensus politics
that chose amnesia (and silence) in matters of its past. As Paloma Aguilar
has demonstrated, this deliberate act of forgetting was rooted in fear,
successfully instilled in the population by the Franco dictatorship, about
the possibility of another war. In other words, the silence that followed
Franco’s death in 1975 had more to do with the war that had happened

1 More recently, see Paul Preston’s The Spanish Holocaust (2012). For a collection
of essays on the topic, see Julián Casanova et al., Morir, matar, sobrevivir (2004).
 Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 29

almost forty years earlier than with the dictatorship (Aguilar 2002: 26–27).
Critical readings of Spanish culture and fictional recreations of this period
have taken note of this silence, but this ‘pacto de silencio’ has only been
challenged publicly since 2000 (Alonso and Muro: 5). The civic work done by
the grandchildren of the victims of the war and the dictatorship, demanding
moral and economic compensation, has become visible to the public. The
creation of groups like the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria
Histórica has allowed private petitions for public exhumations, and these
activities have in turn directly influenced the debate about the 2007 ‘Law
of Historical Memory’.
One consequence of this public discussion has been the exposure of the
political, social, and cultural complexity of the issue of memory in Spain in
relation to the Spanish Civil War. The law proposed by the PSOE in 2004,
which came to be known as the ‘Ley de Memoria Histórica’, crystallised the
many paradoxes surrounding the question of how to address the memory
of Spain’s recent past. The law itself, whose title does not contain the term
‘memory’, was designed to extend the rights of victims of the Spanish Civil
War and the dictatorship and to remove Francoist symbols from public
places. After much heated debate and opposition, led by the conservative
right, a considerably watered-down version of the law was approved by
Congress on 31 October 2007 and implemented on 26 December of the same
year.2 In fact, the current law has such a limited scope and budget that, in
practice, it cannot efficiently deal with the issue of memory or do justice to
the victims of the war and the dictatorship on either side of the ideological
divide (Labanyi 2008b: 119).
The key issue at stake in the dispute over the so-called ‘Law of Historical
Memory’ was the memory of the war as preserved during the dictatorship.
This memory, as explained by Jo Labanyi, had been maintained only privately,
thanks to the Francoist repression. It was only when this memory started
to enter the public sphere that the trouble began, as this shift forced
Spaniards to recognise how their experiences had been suppressed during
the dictatorship and ignored during the transition (Labanyi 2008: 119–20).
Accepting the narrative about a peaceful democratic transformation meant
accepting a political system that ultimately decided to ignore the trauma
of past oppression. The 2007 debate about law and memory quickly turned

2 The actual title of the law is ‘Ley por la que se reconocen y amplían derechos y se
establecen medidas en favor de quienes padecieron persecución o violencia durante
la guerra civil y la dictadura’ [Law by which the rights of those who were persecuted
or were victims of violence during the Civil War and the dictatorship are recognised
and expanded]. Available in pdf format at http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2007/12/27/
pdfs/A53410-53416.pdf.
30 Lost in Transition

into a political war when the conservative PP, then in the minority, tried
to undermine the socialist PSOE by attacking the law. As a result, the
discussion about the legacy of the past turned into a sparring match, with
each party more interested in scoring political points than enacting good
policy (Labanyi 2008b: 119).
The first casualty of this exchange was the term ‘memory’, which was
actually excluded from the law’s title by the Comisión Interministerial, the
body responsible for drafting the text. This commission decided that it was
not the job of the government to interfere with the memory of its citizens
(Labanyi 2008b: 125); nevertheless, the unofficial title ‘Ley de Memoria
Histórica’ stuck in the media. (As we shall see, however, this attachment is
peculiar, for the law does not really address what the popular title seems
to suggest: collective memory.) Also vociferously attacked by politicians
on the right were clauses of the law concerning the removal of Francoist
symbols, such as street names, plaques, statues, and monuments (Labanyi
2008b: 125).3 The desire to defend and preserve these emblems as part
of the national history exposed an ideological position that was, at best,
ambivalent about its authoritarian past.
The popularity of the term ‘memory’ in the press and in the public
debate led to criticisms over a growing industry generating public interest
about Spain’s troubled past for profit. 4 The disapproval, in this case, was
not about political or editorial manoeuvring, but the media’s over-reliance
on phrases such as the ‘recuperación de la memoria histórica’ [recovery of
historical memory] or ‘reconciliación nacional’ [national reconciliation], the
repeated use of which rendered these phrases ineffectual clichés without
any power to urge a more reflective approach towards the past. One example
of the banality resulting from this over-use was its impact on the work of
exhuming common graves, where the phrase ‘graveside testimony’ quickly
came to indicate a popular media subgenre (Labanyi 2008b: 119).
Literary critics like Ángel Loureiro have criticised this ‘interest’ in the
past as deliberately creating a public discourse based on victimhood,
while ignoring the real events that took place during and after the
Franco dictatorship. Loureiro expresses deep suspicion over the appeal to

3 The removal is still an ongoing process. The recently elected mayor of Madrid,
Manuela Carmena, ordered the removal of Francoist names from the streets of
Madrid in July 2015 (‘Spanish Dictator Franco names to go from Madrid Streets’.
Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33425995).
4 It is rather ironic that Javier Cercas has written about this so-called industry,
given the huge success of his 2001 novel Soldados de Salamina (‘Javier Cercas: “La
memoria histórica se ha vuelto una industria”’. Available at http://cultura.elpais.
com/cultura/2014/11/12/babelia/1415819975_800516.html).
 Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 31

sentimentality and the role that emotion can or should play in our present
understanding of history. He questions the notion of ‘historical memory’,
arguing that this phrase only alludes to the construction of memory, rather
than actually engaging in the act of remembering, and thus undermines
the overall concept of memory (226). Memory does play a role in contesting
history, however; as Labanyi correctly argues, ‘historical memory’ does not
indicate specific memory, but rather a collective form of memory that brings
the past to the public sphere (2008b: 120).
Forcing the issue of remembrance into a public space opens the possibility
of creating social frameworks in which individual memories can be placed;
it was Maurice Halbwachs who first wrote about the way collective memory
works and the way such memory is preserved through social structures (38).
While no actual remembering takes place in collective memory, Labanyi
argues that the term is appropriate because ‘the shared (and contested)
understandings of the past that comprise it do connect individuals with the
past, and are transmitted across generations in the same way that private
memories are’ (2008b: 121–22). More precisely, as demonstrated by the
criticism of the Law of Historical Memory by supporters like Emilio Silva
(co-founder of the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica),
in insisting that memory is a private matter, we allow the law to avoid
questions such as the teaching of history in the educational system (Labanyi
2008b: 120). As Labanyi and Silva point out, the law fails to acknowledge
that ‘historical memory’ is a form of collective, and not personal, memory
(Labanyi 2008a: 154; Labanyi 2008b: 120). Memory of the violence of the
Spanish Civil War has become conflicted precisely because it has been forced
to remain a private matter; ultimately, the debate about the Law of Historical
Memory did not manage to shift this view politically.
In the final assessment, the debate about ‘historical memory’, and the
2007 law that grew out of it, was telling in two ways. First, it confirmed the
unresolved nature of the legacy of the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship
in Spanish society. Second, it revealed a political impasse within which
questioning of the past had become synonymous with criticising democracy
in Spain: recognising the failure to address injustices committed in the past
was seen as akin to admitting that the nation’s political transformation was
deficient. The discussion about memory in Spain endures as the disparity
between opposing sides of the conflict becomes increasingly clear; the
losses suffered by the winners and the losers of the conflict during the war
and the dictatorship cannot be considered equal. The fact that these losses
are officially deemed equal fuels the perception of continued injustice and
the view that the past has not been fully settled. This realisation, in turn,
points to the need to come to terms with the shortcomings of the Transición.
32 Lost in Transition

Curiously, the recent crises faced by the state in economics, corruption,

and regional politics have become part of the same narrative of Spain’s
transitional failure. The inability to address the country’s troubled past has
also come to be seen as another reflection of the government’s incapacity to
face its own political struggles.
The suspicion and negativity surrounding the Transición has led to a
renewed interest in the early post-Franco years. As we have seen above,
the memory of this political period has undeniably been influenced by the
experience of remembering the war. I contend that the familiarity (and
practice) of keeping memories of the past private has shaped Spaniards’
relationship with the past. The lack of a public or official venue to deal
with painful memories and experiences has forced people to keep the
act of remembering private. Ironically, many decades later, the intimate
character of these recollections has made them more widely accepted. In
other words, because these memories are defined by their private and
personal connections, they are perceived as authentic and credible. The
appeal of this personalised style of remembering explains the explosion
of contemporary Spanish narratives dealing with intimate memories of
the past. The memories these works narrate are intimate stories of pain
and loss that present themselves as true voices of the past. As social media
extols the cultural importance of individual experience, the subjective is
reinforced and legitimised over and over in these narratives, which thrive
on multiplicity, not in terms of variety, but in the recurrence of similar
experiences. These memories can be understood as rehashed versions of the
same story, told as separate and distinct episodes by different characters.
While the recollections of the years of the transition are not as traumatic
as those of the war or the dictatorship, they are equally subjective. Since they
focus on the personal perspective of a political moment, these memories
tend to be deeply intimate. Historical events are perceived as everyday
experiences by the individuals who lived through them; remembering
what has taken place becomes a quest to define and create a memory of
one’s identity. The multiple retelling of the 23-F, which I discuss in the
next chapter, for example, offers a fascinating glimpse into the practice of
connecting with the past. When an event is repeatedly reconstructed in an
attempt to fully understand what took place, this process creates a narrative
about a subjective experience. Ultimately, this insistent storytelling does not
result in a better understanding of past political developments, but it does
allow for a better comprehension of one’s own identity and how it has been
affected by the past.
 Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 33

Historical traumas persist because of the incapacity of a society to officially

address the losses of the past. In the case of contemporary Spain, the
failure of discussions about the past to lead to a present resolution reveals
a structural problem; the process of addressing past trauma has become
a blame game in which both political parties along the ideological divide
engage in a rhetoric that only emphasises lost opportunities instead
of focusing on the possibility of creating new ones. In Spain’s current
sociocultural configuration, the more frequent the discussion about the
past, the stronger the perceived effects on the present. Recent recollections
of the Transición reinforce feelings of both loss and nostalgia—nostalgia
for a time when change seemed possible, despite the uncertainty, fear, and
violence of those years. Fuelled by the regret of missed opportunities and
the frustration that not much has changed politically, the current attitude
towards Spain’s democratisation is one of disenchantment. Yet there is also
an acknowledgement that, perhaps, the legacy and ideology of Francoism
was so entrenched during the years after his death that little else could
have been done. Ironically, while temporal distance from these political
decisions provides a clear view of their shortcomings, it has also made
those shortcomings harder to articulate. As a consequence, present political
and cultural circumstances are often blamed on the past without concrete
justification. Historical and political facts are hard to remember accurately,
but the feelings they evoke are still very present.5
Perhaps it is the abundance of emotion despite the lack of tangible
political consequences that makes comprehending the recent memories of
the Transición challenging. How should we understand recurring narratives
of this period that rehash familiar events and add little or nothing to what
is already known? Tinted with nostalgia and longing, these narratives are
suspicious for offering an uncritical view of the past. Indeed, it is easier
to disregard them as irrelevant or as part of the recent cultural fad of
‘historical memory’—a fad that has been disparaged, as I mentioned before,
because of its focus on victimhood and its lack of critical perspective. Yet the
insistent popularity of these works demands that we pay critical attention
to them. We should examine the emotion they project, the familiarity with

5 For instance, politicians from the Franco regime, like Manuel Fraga, continued
to be part of that political world until their deaths, sometimes well into the
democratic era. The purging of politicians and the dismantling of the Franco
regime was never quite completed, and their disappearance was due to time and
social change more than political intervention after the end of the dictatorship. The
missed opportunity to ‘break’ with the past has since been identified as proof of
Spain’s troubled political system, manifested in its many levels of corruption, tense
relationships between regional autonomies and the central government, etc.
34 Lost in Transition

which they approach previous political events, the way the memory of these
events permeates the experience of the everyday. Though a large part of
the Spanish population has close ties to these years, structurally speaking,
the political and cultural significance of this connection is hard to assess
from the present. In other words, while it is clear that important changes
have occurred, those changes have been multiple and complex and their
experience resists simplification into a linear narrative that connects past
and present. Yet some of the recent narratives about Spain’s democratisation,
in privileging a subjective account, are able to construct an almost linear
progression that explains the past and links it to the immediate present.
While this body of work has generally been examined for its historical
veracity and ability to complement our understanding or recover forgotten
events of the past, previous critical analysis has paid insufficient attention
to the emotion that saturates these works.
It is within this critical context that I find Kathleen Stewart’s notion of
‘ordinary affects’—defined as ‘public feelings that begin and end in broad
circulation’—useful (2). I link the emotion that permeates recollections of the
Transición with Spain’s current inability—real or manufactured—to provide
closure for the traumatic memories of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco
dictatorship. Recollections of these years often produce a visceral reaction
in those who lived through them; affect theory offers the possibility of
detecting these widely circulating feelings, considering them in context, and
envisioning a public role that they can play in helping us understand the past.
Stewart describes ordinary affects as the ‘varied, surging capacities to
affect and to be affected that give everyday life the quality of a continual
motion of relations, scenes, contingencies, and emergences. They are
things that happen … that catch people up in something that feels like
something’ (1–2). This is precisely the manner in which recent recollections
communicate the political change that took place during the Transición
period. The importance of the story does not lie in the particular historical
or political event being remembered or narrated, but in the small ways
in which that event ends up shaping the everyday. The pace of change is
sometimes so slow that the transformation is only palpable when seen
from decades later. Hindsight is important in these narrations: the small
emotions, the protagonists’ tiny gestures, the fleeting thoughts of the
narrators provide meaning to the act of remembering. More than the story
told in these memories, what is important is the act of recollection itself—the
affect that this activity produces. It is from this perspective that I analyse
the Transición narratives, paying attention to intimations rather than full
actions, noting the way these small signs suddenly disrupt an otherwise
normalised structure of existence.
 Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 35

The circulation of critical narratives of the Transición opens up the past as

a contested space and offers a chance to re-examine previous political events.
Probing the years of political change has also offered the opportunity to retell
stories—perhaps better ones than those already told, more comprehensive,
or stories that can set the record straight. Earlier, I characterised the recent
recollections about the Spanish transition as ‘memory projects’, arguing
that their attempt to retell familiar stories reflects the viewpoint that this
period is unfinished. Their goal is not so much to offer a perfect or final
version of the past (the authors are clearly aware of the multiple ways
in which history can be recalled), but to expose the process by which
remembering takes place: how past experiences become meaningful and
how they remain relevant and connected to the present. The stories should
be understood, therefore, as a symptomatic condition, one that points to a
contested relationship between past and present. They are the consequences
of the collective effect of memory on the Spanish populace; remembering the
past has become part of Spain’s contemporary social fabric.
The Spanish people’s relationship with the Transición has become a
‘thing’—a cultural, historical, and political referent in the present. While
artists continue to produce textual and visual recreations that address the
deficiencies of this period, the perception that remains is one of absence—as
if there were no awareness of these works, or as though the existing ones
were not deemed sufficient. Intriguingly, this response mirrors that to
memories of the Civil War and the dictatorship. Even when the perceived
political and historical vacuum has been filled and addressed by historians,
political scientists, and cultural critics alike, it continues to be sensed as a
reality that affects contemporary society. It is this impression that shapes
the way Spaniards react to their current politics and their shared realities.
Seen in this context, Stewart’s ‘ordinary affects’ pertain not only to public
perception, but also to people’s private lives, which ‘can be experienced
as a pleasure and a shock, as an empty pause or a dragging undertow,
as a sensibility that snaps into place or profound disorientation’; more
importantly, they are not ‘in fixed conditions of possibility but in the actual
lines of potential that a something coming together calls to mind and sets
in motion’ and can be understood ‘as both the pressure points of events
or banalities suffered and the trajectories that forces might take if they
were to go unchecked’ (2). In my analysis of the memories presented in this
book, I seek to examine precisely those moments in which public feelings
become private moments, experienced in subtle ways. As separate incidents,
these memories may seem to hold no meaning and belong to ordinary
moments of everyday life, but together they expose a very particular world
view. On the one hand, the persistent belief that Spain’s troubled history
36 Lost in Transition

remains unresolved creates a particular relationship with the past; on

the other, the continuation of this relationship is a direct consequence of
actions (or even non-actions) taking place in the present, which keeps the
connection between the present and the past active. In contemporary Spain,
this sustained linking has led many to feel that they inhabit both periods at
the same time. The social fabric in which people exist, think, and feel belongs
equally to the present and the past.
Kathleen Stewart’s concept of ordinary affects is connected to Raymond
Williams’s notion of ‘structures of feelings’. Stewart employs Williams’s
concept to talk about ‘social experiences in solution’, which do not need to
be defined or explained before they exert palpable pressures:

[ordinary affects] work not through ‘meanings’ per se, but rather in
the way that they pick up density and texture as they move through
bodies, dreams, dramas, and social worldings of all kinds. Their
significance lies in the intensities they build and in what thoughts
and feelings they make possible. The question they beg is not what
they might mean in an order of representations, or whether they are
good or bad in an overarching scheme of things, but where they might
go and what potential modes of knowing, relating, and attending to
things are already somehow present in them in a state of potentiality
and resonance. (3)

The notion of a break between representation and meaning provides a

useful structure for thinking about recent recollections of the Transición.
Because these recollections usually recreate and revisit familiar historical
events, trying to assess their historical or political accuracy becomes
repetitive and even exhausting. Trying to find meaning in these works—
either by identifying the intersection between fiction and reality or by
creating particular categories for these crossovers—is a rather limiting
activity. Accepting the fluidity (or even the ambiguity) of the meaning of
these narrations, on the other hand, allows us to shift our focus to other
characteristics, such as how the ‘feeling’ of an unresolved past directly affects
how the future is viewed from the present. Instead of simply identifying
which stories or events from the past are told in the present, I am interested
in tracing a narrative flow that opens up an unlimited and continued
link between the two periods. Rather than exposing the all-too-familiar
stories of war, repression, dictatorship, and disillusionment, I focus on
comprehending the affective ways in which these narratives maintain their
interest and relevance in contemporary Spain.
By reading texts for affect—in this case, specifically ‘ordinary affect’—
we undertake an important shift in our understanding of how ideologies
 Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 37

work. What become visible are not political examples or historical events,
but the ways ‘different instances of a relationship with the past’ can be ‘[a]t
once abstract and concrete … more directly completing than ideologies, as
well as more fractious, multiplicitous, and unpredictable than symbolic
meaning’ (Stewart: 3). The diverse connections between present moments
and past experiences render the relationship between them tangible—if
not politically, then certainly in terms of the raw emotions they produce.
Feelings, epiphanies, expectations, and/or frustrations function as real and
material traces of the past. They cannot always be logically explained or
identified, and sometimes they have no relevance at all; sometimes, however,
they are full of significance. It is the unexpected nature of these instances
that makes their presence harder to identify and to articulate.
All of the works examined in this book are similar in the way they
depict the past as continuing to affect the present (and even the future).
Connections between current problems and the events of the Transición
can be made patently obvious or subtle; the works may be thematically
oriented to recount the past from the perspective of the present or they
may be situated within the past itself or even in other times. More than the
actual stories these works tell, what is important is the way these accounts
are made familiar to readers. The stories weave between past and present,
set up so that characters physically experience and relive historical events.
Couching the experiences of the past within the context of the physicality of
everyday life—going to the market, drinking coffee, or going for a walk—
makes these experiences easier to understand for readers. Memory here
becomes physical and emotional, and it is this physicality that creates an
affective relationship with the past.
Moving away from what Stewart calls ‘representational thinking and
evaluative critique’, my interest in these works derives from the complexity
that the phrase ‘interest in the past’ entails (Stewart: 4). I focus on the
pull exerted by the years of the Transición, using this phenomenon as an
opportunity to look into the singularities of the interest in this past. The
fact that none of these recent recollections provides any closure or offers a
clear understanding of this experience demands a closer look. As part of
the so-called ‘crisis of memory’ in Spain, these works are in need of a new
critical approach, one that can map out a new set of connections, a ‘new
contact zone’ between present and past:

Ideologies happen. Power snaps into place. Structures grow entrenched.

Identities take place. Ways of knowing become habitual at the drop of a
hat. But it’s ordinary affects that give things the quality of a something
to inhabit and animate. Politics starts in the animated inhabitations
38 Lost in Transition

of things, not way downstream in the various dreamboats and horror

shows that get moving. The first step in thinking about the force of
things is the open question of what counts as an event, a movement, an
impact, a reason to react. There’s a politics to being/feeling, connected
(or not), to impacts that are shared (or not), to energies spent worrying
or scheming (or not), to affective contagion, and to all the forms of
attunement and attaching. (Stewart: 15–16)

Understanding the Transición as an event and as a shared experience opens

up the possibility of rethinking the significance of the period for the
generation of Spaniards marked by this historical process.
Thinking back to Raymond Williams’s notion of ‘structures of feelings’,
it is important to note the connotation of temporality encoded within it.
Williams uses the term ‘feeling’ instead of ‘world view’ or ‘ideology’ in order
to refer to the ‘meanings and values as they are actively lived and felt’ (132).
Although he considers ‘experience’ perhaps a better word to express this
idea, he chooses ‘feeling’ to connote ‘thought as felt and feeling as thought:
practical consciousness of a present kind, in a living and interrelating
continuity’ (Williams: 132). Using the moment of the present to communicate
a social experience that is ‘still in process’ allows an understanding of the
connections that exist in a generation or a period; for Williams, this process
has a ‘special relevance to art and literature, where the true social content is
in a significant number of cases of this present and affective kind’ (132–33).
The production of memory work around the Transición in recent years
offers us the opportunity to investigate how the generation that came of
age during that time works to comprehend its experiences by recreating
this living process out of its own social material. As Williams explains, this
experience can be characterised ‘not by derivations from other social forms
and pre-forms, but as social formations of a specific kind which may in
turn be seen as the articulation (often the only fully available articulation)
of structures of feeling which as living processes are much more widely
experienced’ (133).
The experience of shared living processes is part of what we could call
a ‘normalised’ structure of existence. But this structure is under constant
political, financial, and cultural pressure. It is constantly disrupted or
shifted, with the result that individuals must make continued adjustments
to maintain their sense of normalcy. Lauren Berlant introduces the notion
of ‘cruel optimism’ to understand this process of adjustment as it relates to
fantasies of the ‘good life’. She explains how subjects negotiate expectations
through affective structures that help to sustain their ideals. For Berlant,
optimism is ambitious and continuous and ‘involves a sustaining inclination
 Ordinary Memories: Feeling the Past 39

to return to the scene of fantasy that enables you to expect that this time,
nearness to this thing will help you or a world to become different in just
the right way’ (2011: 2). At the same time, optimism is cruel ‘when the
object/scene that ignites a sense of possibility actually makes it impossible
to attain the expansive transformation for which a person or a people risks
thriving …’ (Berlant 2011: 2). While this particular discussion applies to
ideals of the ‘good life’ in the context of the US, it is equally relevant to
other fantasy scenarios. In the case of contemporary Spain, for instance, the
possibility of addressing the wrongs of the past may itself be understood as
the ‘desired object’ of cruel optimism. As Berlant writes, it is important to
ask what happens when these fantasy scenarios—including good political
systems, functioning institutions, fair markets, and fulfilling work—reveal
themselves to be unstable, fragile, or costly (2011: 2): ‘[f]antasy is the means
by which people hoard idealising theories and tableaux about how they
and the world “add up to something”. What happens when those fantasies
start to fray—depression, dissociation, pragmatism, cynicism, optimism,
activism, or an incoherent mash?’ (2011: 2). An important exercise is to
read the now—this moment, when the fantasy is no longer sustainable—by
focusing on the affective components of citizenship and the public sphere
(Berlant 2011: 2–3).
Berlant’s description of fantasy maintenance, and the question of what
happens when a fantasy is no longer sustainable, are useful tools in our
discussion about contemporary Spain and its relationship with the past.
How might the current interest in memory and ongoing recollection of
the past be interpreted as an effort to sustain an ideal democracy for
Spain? Or, is the obsessive need to remember the past evidence that the
democratic project initiated by Spain after the Franco dictatorship has yet
to be achieved? In other words, can the recent obsessive remembering of
the Spanish political transition be understood as a critical juncture in terms
of affect? I suggest that the current situation can be seen as a moment in
which a generation marked by a narrative of political change is confronting
its world view and the emotional consequences of living with the rhetoric
of a successful Transición.
Affect theory provides a useful framework for rethinking the relationship
between past and present in contemporary Spain, and particularly the recent
treatment of the years of the country’s political transformation.6 The works

6 The theoretical framework of this book reflects the scholarship I engage with as
an academic working outside of Spain. While I give attention to research published
in Spain on the Transición from the perspective of cultural studies, the connection
between Iberian culture and affect theory has not yet been widely explored in
40 Lost in Transition

of Stewart and Berlant suggest helpful new ways to detect the intensities
present in narratives that touch on familiar topics or easily recognisable
political beliefs. I focus on Berlant’s notion of ‘cruel optimism’ in the last
chapter of the book, but her discussion of good life fantasies and Stewart’s
concept of ‘ordinary affect’ function as valuable starting points to begin
shifting the critical approach to the study of memory in the context of the
Spanish transition. This shift, I contend, will help us to understand the
fluidity of the ongoing discourse about the past—the sense in which these
memories constitute ongoing projects to find a generational experience and
to grasp for meaning in the present by actively recalling or creating private
memories. This examination of feelings and expectations turns my critical
focus away from representation (challenging the link between memory,
fiction, and history) and towards the individualised interaction between
past and present. Berlant argues that:

If the present is not at first an object but a mediated affect, it is also

a thing that is sensed and under constant revision, a temporal genre
whose convention emerges from the personal and public filtering of the
situations and events that are happening in an extended now whose
very parameters (when did the “present” begin?) are also always there
for debate. (2011: 4)

In the case of the works I analyse in this book, the past is perceived in
the same manner. There is a ‘presentness’ in all of the recollections of the
past that seems to undergo constant revision, its parameters continuously
challenged. Berlant refers to this emphasis on the present as ‘the narcissism
of the now’ because ‘it involves anxiety about how to assess various
knowledges and intuitions about what’s happening and how to eke out a
sense of what follows from those assessments’ (2011: 3). It could be argued
that, in Spain, the narcissism is of the past, where every incident or event
is examined and determined for its consequences, material or otherwise.
It is through this constant challenge and assessment that past and present
become intimately linked and even temporally blended as a continued ‘now’
whose origins are found more than three decades ago.
One question that needs to be answered is the ‘why’ behind this need
to link past and present. The affective identification with the past that is
found in the recent recollections of the Transición encourages the audiences
of these works to enter the same relationship, participating in a shared and

scholarship published in Spanish. Luisa Elena Delgado’s La nación singular (2014)

is one of the first books to incorporate affect as an interpretive tool in examining
contemporary Spanish society.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
CHAPTER IX.
 WITCHES, WIZARDS, PROPHECIES, DIVINATION,
DREAMS.

WITCHES.
T
he popular belief in witchcraft, is often alluded to by
Shakespeare. In times gone by witches held dreaded
sway over the affairs of men, perhaps more or less in
almost every country; for they were suspected to have
entered into a league with Satan, in order to obtain power
to do evil, and it was thought that they possessed some
uncanny knowledge which was used by them to injure
people, especially those whom they hated. It was also believed that they
could cause thunder and lightning, could travel on broomsticks through the
air, and even transform themselves and others into animals, especially into
hares. A good many other imaginary things were also placed to the credit of
witches.

In the beginning of last century, and even up to the middle of it, witchcraft
was very strongly believed in in many parts of Pembrokeshire,
Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Radnorshire, and Montgomeryshire. Even
at the present time, there are some who believe that there is in it something
more than a mere deception. I have met several who still believe in it. Many
well-known characters were proud of being looked upon as witches and
conjurors; because they were feared as such and could influence people to
be charitable to them. Many an old woman supposed to be a witch, took
advantage of the credulity of the people, went about the farm houses to
request charity in the way of oat-meal, butter, milk, etc., and could get
almost anything, especially from the women, from fear of being witched;
for it was believed that these witches could bring misfortune on families,
cause sickness, and bring a curse on both men and animals; so that many
used to imagine that they were bewitched whenever anything went wrong,
even a slight mischance. Unfaithful young men would soon fulfil their
promise when they found out that the girl they had slighted was consulting
a witch, so that there was some good even in such a foolish superstition as
witchcraft.

WITCHES SELLING THEMSELVES TO THE DEVIL.

In order to become witches it was believed in Cardiganshire that some old

women sold themselves to the Father of Lies by giving to His Satanic
Majesty the bread of the Communion. The following story I heard about
three years ago, and my informant was Mr. John Davies, Gogoyan Farm, a,
farmer who had heard it from old people:—

Sometime in the beginning of the last century, two old dames attended the
morning service at Llanddewi Brefi Church, and partook of the Holy
Communion; but instead of eating the sacred bread like other
communicants, they kept it in their mouths and went out. Then they walked
round the Church outside nine times, and at the ninth time the Evil One
came out from the Church wall in the form of a frog, to whom they gave the
bread from their mouths, and by doing this wicked thing they were
supposed to be selling themselves to Satan and become witches. It was also
added that after this they were sometimes seen swimming in the river Teivi
in form of hares!

According to Cadrawd, there was an old man in North Pembrokeshire, who

used to say that he obtained the power of bewitching in the following
manner:—The bread of his first Communion he pocketed. He made
pretence at eating it first of all, and then put it in his pocket. When he went
out from the service there was a dog meeting him by the gate, to which he
gave the bread, thus selling his soul to the Devil. Ever after, he possessed
the power to bewitch.
A SERVANT MAID WITCHED IN A CHAPEL.

An old woman of about eighty years of age, named Mrs. Mary Thomas,
Bengal, near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, informed me about four years ago,
that when she was a young girl, the Gwaun Valley in that county was full of
witches, more especially of the descendants of one particularly malicious
old woman who in her time had proved a terror to the neighbourhood. On
one occasion, a well-known family who practised the black art and were
guilty of witchcraft, wanted to become members of the Baptist Chapel at
Caersalem, and at last they were admitted; but after being received as
members of the chapel, they were ten times worse than before. One witch
during Divine Service, even on the very day she became a communicant,
witched a young woman who was a fellow servant of my informant at a
farm called Gellifor, near Cilgwyn. The witch was sitting behind, and in the
very next pew to the young woman she witched, which caused the
unfortunate girl to rush out from the chapel, and was seen running about the
road almost wild and mad. After she had been wild and ill for some time,
and every remedy having failed to recover her, her father at last went to
Cwrt-y-Cadno, over forty miles away in Carmarthenshire, to consult Dr.
Harries, a well-known wizard and a medical man. The conjurer informed
the man that his daughter had been witched in chapel by an old woman who
was a witch, and he showed him the whole scene in a magic mirror! In
order to unwitch the girl, and to prevent further witchcraft, the wizard gave
the father some paper with mystic words written on it, which the young
woman was to wear on her breast.
A GIRL WHO WAS BEWITCHED BY THE GYPSIES,
NEAR CARMARTHEN.

About fifty years ago there was a young woman very ill in the parish of
Llanllawddog, Carmarthenshire, but no one could tell what was the matter
with her, and the doctor had failed to cure her. At last, her mother went to
consult the local wizard, who at that time kept a school in the neighbouring
parish of Llanpumpsaint, and lived at a place called Fos-y-Broga. At the
woman’s request the conjurer accompanied her home to see her daughter.
After seeing the girl he entered into a private room alone for a few minutes,
and wrote something on a sheet of paper which he folded up and tied it with
a thread. This he gave to the woman and directed her to put the thread round
her daughter’s neck, with the folded paper suspending on her breast. He
also told the mother to remember to be at the girl’s bedside at twelve
o’clock that night. The young woman was put in bed, and the wizard’s
folded paper on her breast. The mother sat down by the fireside till
midnight; and when the clock struck twelve she heard her daughter
groaning. She ran at once to the poor girl’s bedside, and found her almost
dying with pain; but very soon she suddenly recovered and felt as well in
health as ever. The conjurer had told the girl’s mother that she had been
bewitched by the Gypsies, which caused her illness, and warned the young
woman to keep away from such vagrants in the future. The Conjurer’s
paper, which had charmed away her illness was put away safely in a
cupboard amongst other papers and books; and many years after this when
a cousin of the mother was searching for some will or some other important
document, he accidentally opened the wizard’s paper and to his surprise
found on it written:

“Abracadabra,
Sickness depart from me.”

My informant, whose name is Jones, an old farmer in the parish of

Llanpumpsaint, vouches for the truth of the above story, and that the young
woman was a relation of his.
Another old man, named Benjamin Phillips, who lives in the same
neighbourhood gave me a similar tale of another girl bewitched by the
Gypsies, and recovered by obtaining some wild herbs from a conjurer. Such
stories are common all over the country. Certain plants, especially Meipen
Fair, were supposed to possess the power of destroying charms.

A CARDIGANSHIRE GIRL WHO HAD BEEN

WITCHED.

I obtained the following story from David Pugh, Erwlwyd,

Carmarthenshire, an old farmer who is over 90 years of age:—

A woman from Cardiganshire whose daughter was very ill and thought to
have been bewitched, came to the Wizard of Cwrt-y-Cadno, in
Carmarthenshire to consult him. The wise man wrote some mystic words on
a bit of paper, which he gave to the woman, telling her that if her daughter
was not better when she arrived home to come to him again. The woman
went home with the paper, and to her great joy found the girl fully
recovered from her illness. My informant knew the woman, as she had
called at his house.

ANOTHER CARDIGANSHIRE WOMAN WITCHED.

An old man living in the parish of Llangwyryfon, seven miles from

Aberystwyth, named Jenkin Williams, told me the following story six years
ago when he was 89 years of age, and vouched for the truth of the account:
—A certain woman who lived in that parish was supposed to be a witch,
and it was said she had a brother a wizard: Her husband was a shoemaker.
Another woman who used to go back and fore to the town of Aberystwyth,
with a donkey-cart, refused on one occasion to bring some leather to the
supposed witch and her husband. Soon after this, the woman was taken ill,
and the shoemaker’s wife was suspected of having witched her. The son of
the sick woman went to Cwrt-y-Cadno in Carmarthenshire to consult the
“Dyn Hysbys.” The conjurer told the young man to go home as soon as
possible, and that he should see the person who caused his mother’s
indisposition coming to the house on his return home. When the son
reached home who should enter the house but the supposed witch, and as
soon as she came in she spoke in Welsh to his mother something as follows:
—“Mae’n ddrwg genyf eich bod mor wael, ond chwi wellwch eto, Betti
fach.” (I am sorry you are so unwell, but you will get well again, Betty
dear). The sick woman recovered immediately!

A FARMER’S DAUGHTER AT WALTON EAST, IN

PEMBROKESHIRE BEWITCHED FOR FIFTEEN
YEARS FOR REFUSING ALMS TO AN OLD HAG.

Mrs. Mary Williams, Dwrbach, a very old woman, informed me, that about
55 years ago, there was a well-known witch in the neighbourhood of Walton
East, and that on one occasion two young women, daughters of a farm in
that part of the country, were taken ill quite suddenly, and were supposed to
have been witched by this old woman. The mother of the two young women
went to the witch and rebuked the old hag, saying: “Old woman, why did
you witch my daughters? Come and undo thy wickedness.” The old woman
replied that she did not do anything to them. But the mother still believing
that she was guilty, compelled her to come along with her to the farmhouse
and undo her mischief. At last, she came, and when they reached the door of
the farmhouse, the witch pronounced these words in Welsh: “Duw ai
bendithio hi.” (God bless her). Any such expression pronounced by a witch
freed the bewitched person or an animal from the spell. One of the two
sisters (both of whom were in bed in another room), overheard these words
of the old woman, but her sister did not hear or at least did not catch the
words. The young woman who heard the supposed witch saying “Duw a’i
bendithio hi,” got well at once, but her poor sister who missed hearing,
instead of recovering went worse, if anything, than before, and continued to
keep to her bed for fifteen years. And during all these years she was so
strange, that even when her own mother entered her room, she would hide
under the bed clothes like a rat, and her food had to be left on her bed for
her, for she would not eat in the presence of anybody. At last, the old
woman who was thought to have witched the young woman, died, and as
the the mortal remains of the witch were decaying in the grave, the girl
began to get better, and she soon fully recovered and became quite herself
again after fifteen years’ illness. My informant added that after recovering,
the young woman got married and received £1,500 from her parents on her
wedding-day, and that she is still alive (or was very lately) and a wife of a
well-to-do farmer. My informant also said that she was well acquainted
with the family.

MEN WITCHED BY AN OLD LLEDROD HAG.

About sixty years ago Thomas Lewis, Garthfawr, between Llanilar and
Lledrod, was for some time suffering from almost unbearable bodily pain,
and did not know what to do. The general belief was that he had been
bewitched by an old woman who was a terror to the neighbourhood; and at
last a man went to Llangurig, in Montgomeryshire, to consult a wise man
about it. It was found out soon afterwards that as soon as the conjurer was
consulted, the sick man fully recovered from his illness, got up from bed,
dressed himself, and came down from his bedroom and felt as well as ever,
to the very great surprise and joy of all his family and friends. My
informant, Thomas Jones, of Pontrhydfendigaid, who knew the man well,
vouches for the truth of this story.
Mr. Jones also gave me an account of another man who was witched by the
same old hag. The wife of Rhys Rhys, Pwllclawdd and her sister were
churning all day, but the milk would not turn to butter. Rhys, at last, went to
the old witch and asked her to come and undo her mischief, as she had
witched the milk. She was very unwilling to come, but Rhys compelled her.
When Mrs. Rhys and her sister saw the old witch coming, they ran to hide
themselves in a bedroom. The hag took hold of the churn’s handle for a few
seconds, and the milk turned to excellent butter at once; but poor Rhys who
had always been a strong man till then, never enjoyed a day of good health
after; for the old hag witched the farmer himself in revenge for compelling
her to unwitch the milk.

A HORSE WITCHED.

Thomas Jones, an old man who is 85 years of age and lives at

Pontrhydfendigaid, informed me that about sixty years ago, the old witch
was greatly feared by the people of the neighbourhood, as it was generally
believed that the hag cursed or witched those whom she disliked. On one
occasion, when her neighbour’s horse broke through the hedge into her
field, she witched the animal for trespassing. The horse was shivering all
over and everything was done in vain to cure the poor animal; but the very
moment John Morgan, the Llangurig conjurer was consulted, the horse fully
recovered, and looked as well as ever. My informant vouches for the truth
of this, and says he had seen the horse, and that the man who consulted the
conjurer was a friend of his, and, that he even knew the conjurer himself.

CATTLE WITCHED.
At Mathry in Pembrokeshire, there was a celebrated witch, and people
believed that she was often guilty of witching the cattle. On one occasion
when a servant maid of a farm-house in the neighbourhood had gone out
one morning to milk the cows, she found them in a sitting posture like cats
before a fire, and in vain did she try to get them to move. The farmer
suspected the witch of having caused this. He went to her at once, and
compelled the hag to come and undo her evil trick. She came and told him
that there was nothing wrong with the cows, and she simply put her hand on
the back of each animal, and they immediately got up, and there was no
further trouble.

HORSES KILLED BY WITCHCRAFT IN

RADNORSHIRE.

Mr. Theophilus, a blacksmith, at Cilcwm, in Carmarthenshire, 80 years of

age, informed me that he well remembered a Radnorshire farmer who had
lost two horses, one after the other, and as he had suspected that the animals
were “killed by witchcraft” he decided to go all the way to Cwrt-y-cadno to
consult the wise man about it. The man travelled all the way from
Radnorshire, and in passing the small village of Cilcwm, where my
informant lived, begged the blacksmith to accompany him to the conjurer
who lived in another parish some distance off. The wizard told him that it
was such a pity he had not come sooner, “for,” said he, “if you had come to
me yesterday, I could have saved your third horse, but now it is too late, as
the animal is dying. But for the future take this paper and keep it safely and
you will have your animals protected.”

I was also informed that farmers came all the way from Herefordshire to
consult the wise man of Cwrt-y-Cadno.
SHEEP KILLED BY AN OLD WITCH.

Mrs. Edwards, an old woman who lives at Yspytty Ystwyth, in

Cardiganshire, informed me that she knew an old witch who lived in the
neighbourhood of Ystrad Meurig. One day, this hag saw two shepherds
passing her cottage on their way to the mountain with some sheep. The old
woman espied one particular lamb and begged one of the shepherds to give
the animal to her as a present, but the young man refused her request. “Very
well,” said the witch, “thou wilt soon loose both the lamb and its mother,
and thou shalt repent for thus refusing me.” Before reaching the end of the
journey to the mountain, the sheep and her lamb died, and it was all put
down to the hag’s account, for it was believed that she had witched them to
death in revenge.

A SHIP WITCHED.

On a particular occasion nearly sixty years ago, a large number of the

leading gentry and others from all parts of Pembrokeshire went to witness
the launch of H. M. Ship “Cæsar,” at Pembroke Dock. Among the crowd
there was an old woman named “Betty Foggy” who was believed to possess
the power of witching. When Betty noticed a lot of gentry going up the
steps to the grand stand, she followed suit with an independent air; but she
was stopped by the police. She struggled hard to have her way, but was
forced back. She felt very angry that she had to yield, and shouted out
loudly: “All right, the ship will not go off,” but the old hag’s threat was only
laughed at. The usual formalities were gone through, and weights dropped,
and amidst cheering the ship began to glide away—but not for long, for the
“Cæsar” soon became to stand and remained so till the next tide when she
got off by the assistance of some ships afloat, and other means. The old
witch was delighted, and people believed that she was the cause of the
failure to launch the ship.

MILK THAT WOULD NOT CHURN AND THE WITCH.

Many believe, and some still believe, especially in Cardiganshire, that when
milk would not churn that witches had cursed it. An old woman at Ystrad
Meurig, who was supposed to be a witch, called one day at a farm house
and begged for butter, but being refused she went away in a very bad
temper. The next time they churned the milk would not turn to butter, and
they had to throw it out as they were afraid of giving it to the pigs. When
they were churning the second time again the milk would not turn to butter
as usual. But instead of throwing out the milk as before, they went to the
old woman and forced her to come to the farmhouse and undo her spell. She
came and put her hand on the churn, and the milk successfully turned to
butter. My informant was Mrs. Edwards, Ysbytty Ystwyth.

ANOTHER CARDIGANSHIRE STORY OF MILK

THAT WOULD NOT TURN TO BUTTER.

The following account was given me by Mr. Jenkin Williams,

Llangwyryfon:—

There was a man and his family living at a cottage called Penlon, a small
place just enough to keep one cow. The name of the man was John Jones;
and on one occasion when he and his wife were trying to churn they failed
to do so, or in other words the milk would not turn into butter. At last J.
Jones went to Cwrt-y-Cadno, in Carmarthenshire to consult the “Dyn
Hysbys.” The wizard as he often did, gave the man a bit of paper with some
mystic words on it, and told him not to show it to anybody, as the charm
could not work after showing the paper to others. As he was passing on his
way home through a place called Cwm Twrch, he met with a woman who
accosted him and asked him where he had been to. The man was rather shy,
but at last he admitted that he had been to Cwrt-y-Cadno to consult the
conjurer, and he told the woman everything. “I well knew,” said the woman,
“You had been to Cwrt-y-Cadno, for only those who go to the conjurer pass
this way; show me the paper which he gave to you, for I am a cousin of the
conjurer.” And the man showed it to her. “The paper is alright,” said she,
“Take it home with you as soon as you can.” He went home with great joy,
but unfortunately the churning still proved a failure. Instead of undertaking
another journey himself again, J. Jones went to his neighbour Jenkin
Williams, and begged him to go to the conjurer to obtain another paper for
him, and at last J. Williams went. The conjurer, however, was not willing to
give another paper without £1 cash for it; but he gave it at last for a more
moderate price, when my informant pleaded the poverty of his friend. When
Williams asked the wise man what was the reason that the milk would not
churn, the reply was that an enemy had cursed it by wishing evil to his
neighbour. When this second paper was taken home (which was not shown
to anybody on the road), the milk was churned most successfully, and
splendid butter was obtained.

In some places a hot smoothing iron thrown into the churn was effective
against the witch’s doings.

BURYING THE CHARM.

In some of the stories I have already given a paper obtained from a conjurer
in the way of charm was considered very effective to undo the witch’s evil
doings; but from the following story, which I obtained from David Pugh,
Erwlwyd, it seems that it was necessary in some cases to bury this bit of
paper in the ground. It was also thought a few generations ago, that a letter
hidden under a stone was a good thing to keep away both witches and evil
spirits and to secure good luck to a house.

Many years ago in the neighbourhood of Llandilo, Carmarthenshire, a

young farmer was engaged to be married to a daughter of another farmer;
but a few days before the wedding-day the bride and bridegroom and their
families quarrelled, so that the wedding did not take place. After this, ill-
luck attended the young farmer day after day; many of his cattle died till he
became quite a poor man very depressed in spirit. The young woman who
had been engaged to him was a supposed witch so she was suspected of
having caused all his misfortunes. His friends advised him to consult a
wizard, and he did so, as there was a “dyn hysbys” close by at Llandilo, in
those days, so it was said. The wizard informed the farmer that he and his
friends were right in their suspicions about the young woman, and that his
losses had been brought about by her who had once been engaged to be
married to him. Then the wizard wrote something on a sheet of paper and
handed it to the young farmer directing him to bury this paper down in the
ground underneath the gate-post at the entrance to his farmyard. The young
man went home and buried the paper as directed by the wizard, and from
that time forth nothing went wrong.

PROTECTIVES AGAINST WITCHCRAFT.

Mrs. Mary Thomas, Bengal, near Fishguard, informed me that it was

customary when she was young to counteract the machinations of witches
by killing a mare and take out the heart and open and burn it, having first
filled it up with pins and nails. This compelled the witch to undo her work.
Mrs. Thomas also added that when the heart was burning on such occasions
the smoke would go right in the direction of the witch’s house.
Another old woman near Fishguard, informed the Rev. J. W. Evans, a son of
the Rector of Jordanston, that she remembered an old woman who was
thought to be guilty of witching poor farmers’ cattle. At last she was forced
to leave the district by the people who believed her to be a witch. But soon
after she left a cow died, and even her calves were ill. People took out the
cow’s heart and burnt it, which forced the hag to return to heal the calves.

A FISHGUARD WITCH DISCOMFITED.

Another way of protecting oneself from witchcraft was to keep a nail on the
floor under the foot when a witch came to the door. Mr. David Rees, baker
at Fishguard, told me a few years ago that there was once a particular witch
in that town who was very troublesome, as she was always begging, and
that people always gave to her, as they were afraid of offending her. She
often came to beg from his mother, who at last, as advised by her friends,
procured a big nail from a blacksmith’s shop. She put the nail under her foot
on the floor, the next time the old witch came to the door begging. The old
hag came again as usual to beg and to threaten; but my informant’s mother
sent her away empty handed, saying, “Go away from my door old woman, I
am not afraid of you now, for I have my foot on a nail.” She kept her foot
on the nail till the witch went out of sight, and by doing so felt herself safe
from the old hag’s spells.

Nails or a horseshoe or an old iron were considered preservatives against

witchcraft.

A CILCWM STORY.
Mr. Theophilus, the old blacksmith, at Cilcwm, in Carmarthenshire, told me
that when he was a boy the cattle had been witched by an enemy. They
would not touch the grass in the field of their own farm; but whenever put
in any field of another farm they would graze splendidly. My informant’s
mother could not understand this, and she felt very much distressed about it.
At last she took the advice of friends and went to consult the Wizard of
Cwrt-y-Cadno, who informed her that an enemy with whom she was well
acquainted, had witched her cattle. Then he advised her to go home and buy
a new knife, (one that had never been used before), and go directly to a
particular spot in the field where a solitary “pren cerdinen” (mountain ash)
grew, and cut it with this new knife. This mountain ash, and some of the
cows’ hair, as well as some “witch’s butter” she was to tie together and burn
in the fire; and that by performing this ceremony or charm, she should see
the person who was guilty of witching her cows, coming to the door or the
window of her house. My informant told me that his mother carried out
these directions, and that everything happened as the wizard had foretold
her. After this, there was nothing wrong with the cows.

WITCHES AND THE MOUNTAIN ASH.

Of all things to frustrate the evil designs of witches the best was a piece of
mountain ash, or as it is called in Welsh “pren cerdinen.” The belief in
mountain ash is very old in Wales, and the tree was held sacred in ancient
times, and some believe that the Cross of our Lord was made of it. Witches
had a particular dread of this wood, so that a person who carried with him a
branch of “pren cerdinen” was safe from their spells; and it is believed in
Wales, as well as in parts of England, that the witch who was touched with
a branch of it was the victim carried off by the devil when he came next to
claim his tribute—once every seven years.

I was told a few years ago at Talybont, that many in that part of
Cardiganshire grew mountain ash in their gardens, and that a man carrying
home a little pig was seen with a branch of this wood to protect the animal
from witchcraft. In South Pembrokeshire many carry in their pockets a twig
of the mountain ash when going on a journey late at night; and a woman at
Llanddewi Brefi, in Cardiganshire, Miss Anne Edwards, Penbontgoian,
informed me about seven years ago that when she was a child the
neighbourhood was full of witches, but nothing was so effective against
them as the mountain ash; no witch would come near it. A man travelling on
horseback, especially at night, was very much exposed to the old hags, and
the horse was more so than even the man riding the animal; but a branch or
even a twig of the mountain ash carried in hand and held over the horse’s
head, protected both the animal and the rider against all the spells of
witches. The same woman informed me that on one occasion, the servant
man and the servant girl of Llanio Isaf, in that parish, were going to the mill
one night, but all of a sudden they found both themselves and their horse
and cart right on the top of a hedge. This was the work of the witches. After
this, they carried a mountain ash, so as to be safe.

Another old woman in Pembrokeshire, named Mrs. Mary Williams,

Dwrbach, informed me that a notorious old hag who was supposed to be a
witch, was coming home on one occasion from Haverfordwest fair, in a cart
with a farmer who had kindly taken her up. As they were driving along the
road between Haverfordwest and Walton East, they happened to notice
three teams harrowing in a field, and the farmer who was driving the cart
asked the witch whether she could by her spells stop the teams? “I could
stop two of them,” said she, “but the third teamster has a piece of mountain
ash fast to his whip, so I cannot do anything to him.”

Mrs. Mary Williams also informed me that when she was a little girl her
mother always used to say to her and the other children on the last day of
December: “Now children, go out and fetch a good supply of mountain ash
to keep the witches away on New Year’s Day,” and branches of it were
stuck into the wall about the door, windows and other places outside. Then
witches coming to beg on New Year’s Day could do no harm to the inmates
of the house.
In Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire, and North Pembrokeshire, the mountain
ash is called “pren cerdinen,” but it was once known in the South of
Pembrokeshire, where the people are not of Welsh origin, as “rontree”; and
the name “rowan” is still retained in some parts of England, which is
derived according to Dr. Jameson, from the old Norse “runa,” a secret, or
charm, on account of its being supposed to have the power to avert the evil
eye, etc.

DRAWING BLOOD FROM A WITCH.

Drawing blood from a witch by anyone incapacitated the old hag, from
working out her evil designs upon the person who spilt her blood. Many
years ago a farmer from the neighbourhood of Swyddffynon, in
Cardiganshire, was coming home late one night from Tregaron, on
horseback. As he was crossing a bridge called Pont Einon (once noted for
its witches), a witch somehow or other managed to get up behind him on
the horse’s back; but he took out his pocket-knife with which he drew blood
from the witch’s arm, and he got rid of the old hag. After this, she was
unable to witch people. My informant was Mr. John Jones, of
Pontrhydfendigaid.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF WITCHES.

Witches were supposed to transform themselves into animals, especially

that of an hare. And this belief is a very old one, for Giraldus Cambrensis
seven hundred years ago in his “Topography of Ireland,” (Bonn’s edition)
says: “It has also been a frequent complaint, from old times as well as in the
present, that certain hags in Wales, as well as in Ireland and Scotland,
changed themselves into the shape of hares, that, sucking teats under this
counterfeit form, they might stealthily rob other people’s milk.” Tales
illustrative of this very old belief are still extant in Wales, and John
Griffiths, Maenclochog, in Pembrokeshire, related to me the story of:

A WITCH WHO APPEARED IN THE FORM OF AN

HARE EVERY MORNING TO A SERVANT MAID AT
MILKING TIME.

Griffiths informed me that when his mother was young, she was engaged as
a servant maid at a small gentleman’s seat, called Pontfaen, in the Vale of
Gwaun. But whenever she went out early in the morning to milk the cows,
an old witch who lived in the neighbourhood always made her appearance
in the form of an hare, annoying the girl very much. At last she informed
her master of it, and at once the gentleman took his gun and shot the hare;
but somehow, the animal escaped, though he succeeded in wounding and
drawing blood from her. After this, the young woman went to see the old
hag who was supposed to be a witch, Maggie by name, and found her in
bed with a sore leg.

A WITCH IN THE FORM OF AN HARE SHOT BY A

FARM SERVANT.

The following tale was told me by a Mrs. Edwards, Ysbytty Ystwyth, in

Cardiganshire:—
An old witch who lived at Tregaron, went to Trecefel, a large farm in the
neighbourhood, to beg for the use of a small corner of a field to grow some
potatoes for herself. The farmer himself was away from home at the time,
but his wife was willing, as she was afraid of offending the witch. The head
servant, however, refused her request, and sent her away, which naturally
made her very angry, and in departing she used threatening words. One day,
soon after this, the same servant was out in the field, and he noticed a hare
in the hedge continually looking at him, and watching all his movements. It
occurred to him at last that this creature was the old witch he had offended,
appearing in the form of a hare, and somehow or other he had not the least
doubt in his mind about it, so he procured a gun and fired, but the shot did
not inflict any injury on the hare. In the evening, when he met some of his
friends at a house in the village, the man servant told them everything about
the hare and of his suspicion that she was the witch. One of his friends told
him that ordinary shots or bullets were no good to shoot a witch with, but
that it was necessary for him to load his gun with a bent four-penny silver
coin. He tried this, and the next time he fired the hare rolled over screaming
terribly. Soon after this, people called to see the old woman in her cottage,
and found that she had such a wound in her leg that she could hardly move.
Dr. Rowland was sent for, and when he came and examined her leg he
found a fourpenny silver coin in two pieces in it. “You old witch,” said he,
“I am not going to take any trouble with you again: death is good enough
for your sort,” and die she did.

The possibility of injuring or marking the witch in her assumed form so

deeply that the bruise remained a mark on her in her natural form was a
common belief.

A WITCH IN THE FORM OF A HARE HUNTED BY A

PEMBROKESHIRE SQUIRE’S HOUNDS.
The following tale was told me by Mrs. Mary Thomas, Bengal, near
Fishguard:—

The Squire of Llanstinan, was a great huntsman, but whenever he went out
with his hounds, a certain hare always baffled and escaped from the dogs.
He followed her for miles and miles, day after day, but always failed to
catch the animal. At last the people began to suspect that this hare must
have been a witch in the shape of a hare, and the gentleman was advised to
get “a horse and a dog of the same colour,” and he did so. So the next time
he was hunting he had a horse and a dog of the same colour, and they were
soon gaining ground on the hare; but when the dog was on the very point of
catching the animal, the hare suddenly disappeared through a hole in the
door of a cottage. The Squire hurried to the spot and instantly opened the
door, but to his great surprise the hare had assumed the form of an old
woman, and he shouted out: “Oh! ti Mari sydd yna.” (It is you Mary!)

A WITCH IN THE FORM OF A HARE HUNTED IN

CARDIGANSHIRE.

Mr. Rees, Maesymeillion, Llandyssul, told me the following tale which he

had heard from an old woman in the neighbourhood:—

Once there was a Major Brooks living in the parish of Llanarth, who kept
hounds and was fond of hunting. One day, he was hunting a hare that a little
boy of nine years old had started; but the hare not only managed to elude
her pursuers, but even to turn back and attack the hounds. The hunting of
this hare was attempted day after day, but with the same results; and the
general opinion in the neighbourhood was, that this hare was nothing but an
old witch who lived in that part, with whom the huntsman had quarrelled.

An old man in Carmarthenshire informed me that an old woman known as

Peggy Abercamles, and her brother Will, in the neighbourhood of Cilcwm,
in that county were seen running about at night in the form of hares.

THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT OF A WITCH SHOT IN THE

FORM OF A HARE.

From the following story which I heard at Talybont, in North Cardiganshire,

it seems that witches did not always transform themselves. In some cases it
was thought that the hare was not the witch herself, but the old hag’s
Familiar Spirit assuming the shape of a hare in her stead; but the life of the
witch was so closely connected with the Familiar, that when the Familiar
was shot, the witch suffered.

The tale is as follows:—

There was an old woman at Llanfihangel Genau’r Glyn, who was supposed
to be a witch. One day a man in the neighbourhood shot a hare with a piece
of silver coin. At the very time when the hare was shot, the old woman who
was a witch was at home washing, but fell into the tub, wounded and
bleeding. It was supposed by the people of the neighbourhood that the hare
which was shot was the old hag’s familiar spirit.

MEN CHANGED INTO ANIMALS.

It is said that an old witch near Ystrad Meurig, in Cardiganshire, turned a

servant man of a farm called Dolfawr, into a hare on one occasion; and into
a horse on another occasion and rode him herself.
In the Mabinogion we have the Boar Trwyth, who was once a King, but
God had transformed into a swine for his sins. Nynniaw and Peibaw also
had been turned into oxen. And in the topography of Ireland, by Giraldus
Cambrensis, mention is made of a man and a woman, natives of Ossory,
who through the curse of one Natalis, had been compelled to assume the
form of wolves. And while speaking of witches changing themselves into
hares the same writer adds: “We agree, then, with Augustine, that neither
demons nor wicked men can either create or really change their nature, but
those whom God has created can, to outward appearance, by His
permission, become transformed, so that they appear to be what they are
not.”

If learned men, like Augustine and Giraldus Cambrensis and others,

believed such stories, it is no wonder that ignorant people did so. I am
inclined to believe, like the late Rev. Elias Owen, that the transformation
fables that have descended to us would seem to be fossils of a pagan faith
once common to the Celtic and other cognate races.

The belief in transformation and transmigration has lingered among some

people almost to the present day. Mr. Thomas Evans, Gwaralltyryn, in the
parish of Llandyssul, informed me that he was well-acquainted with an old
Ballad singer, who was known as Daniel Y Baledwr. Daniel lived near
Castle Howel, and sang at Llandyssul fairs, songs composed by Rees Jones,
of Pwllffein. This ballad-singer told my informant that he was sure to return
after death in the form of a pig, or of some other animal; and that an animal
had a soul or spirit as well as a man had.

WIZARDS.

There were many conjurers in Wales in former times, and even at the
present day there are a few who have the reputation of practising the Black
Art; for we still hear occasionally of persons taking long journeys to consult
them, especially in cases of supposed bewitched cattle, horses, pigs, etc. I
have already given stories of conjurers counteracting the machinations of
witches, and delivering both people and animals from their spell. But they
were accredited with the power to do many other things beside. They could,
it was thought, compel a thief to restore what he had stolen; could also
reveal the future and raise and command spirits.

The possibility of raising spirits, or to cause them to appear, was once

believed in in Wales, even in recent times; and Shakespeare in his Henry the
Fourth, Act III., S. 1., makes the Welshman, Glendower say:—

“I can call Spirits from the vasty deep.”

Wizards and others who practised magical arts were supposed to be able to
summon spirits at will; but it seems that some could not control the demons
after summoning them. An old man at Llandovery, named Mr. Price, who
was once a butler at Blaennos, informed me that an old witch at Cilcwm,
named Peggy, found it most difficult to control the spirits in the house, and
sometimes she had to go out into a field, and stand within a circle of
protection with a whip in her hand.

Conjurers possessed books dealing with the black art, which they had to
study most carefully, for it was thought that according to the directions of
magical books the spirits were controlled. It was considered dangerous for
one ignorant of the occult science to open such books, as demons or
familiar spirits came out of them, and it was not always easy to get rid of
such unearthly beings. An old woman at Caio, in Carmarthenshire,
informed me that the great modern wizard Dr. Harries, of Cwrtycadno, who
lived in that parish, had one particular book kept chained and padlocked.
The old woman also added that people were much afraid of this book, and
that even the wizard himself was afraid of it, for he only ventured to open it
once in twelve months, and that in the presence and with the assistance of
another conjurer, a schoolmaster from Pencader, who occasionally visited
him. On a certain day once every twelve months, Dr. Harries and his friend
went out into a certain wooded spot not far from the house, and after
drawing a circle round them, they opened the chained book. Whenever this
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com