Franco’s Spain revealed from the inside out
13 February 2012
By David Steinberg / Journal Staff Writer on Sat, Feb 4, 2012
Martha Heard of Albuquerque will chat about her long-running oral-history project in a talk titled “Revolution Within a Civil War” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
The project is centered on the period of the Spanish Civil War during and after the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Càlig, an agricultural town in the Castellón province of Spain.
“When I started doing the interviews, a doctor in the village introduced me to two guys who were anarchists. I talked to them for 23 hours-plus on cassette tape,” Heard said. “I got interested in their story, particularly what happened in the Civil War in the village and the anarchist collective they set up. … The anarchists had collectivized the (almond) factories and the property of big landowners.”
She said she also learned about the conflicts in the village with the other political factions — the Republicanos and other moderates and the Fascists, which included Monarchists.
“It was very fractured,” Heard said of the political landscape.
Her talk will emphasize the period from July 18, 1936, the date that Franco’s troops entered the village as the anarchists and Republicanos fled, to April 15, 1938.
Heard had bought a house in Càlig in 1977, which gave her an entree to villagers. She received a grant to start the oral-history project. In 1999, when she retired from teaching in colleges and at Highland High School, Heard gradually got back into the project. She is writing a book based on it.
Castellón is on the east coast of Spain. Heard’s talk is part of the NHCC’s Resolana series. It is free.
The NHCC is at 1701 Fourth SW.
Number of Visits: 5432
Share
The latest
- 374th Night of Remembrance - 3
- 100 Questions/ 52
- The Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War - 52
- A year of non-stop questioning
- Memories of Mrs. Jumay Ahmed Karoufi
- Encountering Oral History from a Theatrical Perspective
- 100 Questions/51
- The Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War-51
Most visited
- The Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War-51
- Encountering Oral History from a Theatrical Perspective
- 100 Questions/51
- A year of non-stop questioning
- Memories of Mrs. Jumay Ahmed Karoufi
- The Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War - 52
- 100 Questions/ 52
- 374th Night of Remembrance - 3
100 Questions / 43
How can narrators and interviewers reach a common understanding?We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week.
Documentary Pathology of the US Embassy Documents
The Necessity of Scientific Rereading and Content Analysis of DocumentsMore than four decades have passed since the publication of the first collections of documents from the US Embassy in Tehran. However, despite the relatively easy access to this treasure trove of documents, systematic research exploitation of it has not been adequate. We still do not have a “comprehensive picture” of the content of these 11,000 documents.
100 Questions / 42
What is the importance of the narrator and interviewers shared understanding of the past in oral history?We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all the answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week.
Validation: Challenges and Necessities
Where does truth stand in oral history? How can the correctness of a narrative be recognized? Does fact-checking matter? If there is exaggeration in the reporting of some accounts, how can it be detected? Is it possible to record an event accurately through the recording of a narrative? Readers and users of oral history works are often faced with these questions, and sometimes encounter doubts about some oral history works.
