{"id":6832,"date":"2019-04-15T18:04:06","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T22:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6832"},"modified":"2019-04-29T18:05:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T22:05:14","slug":"francos-invisible-legacy-books-across-the-hispanic-world-are-still-scarred-by-his-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6832","title":{"rendered":"Franco\u2019s Invisible Legacy: Books Across the Hispanic World Are Still Scarred by His Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"
Spanish practices. Dani Oliver<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s exactly 80 years since the end<\/a> of the Spanish Civil War, when General Francisco Franco\u2019s populist forces finally overcame the leftist resistance and plunged the country into full-blown dictatorship. Decades after his death, Franco continues to cast a long shadow over Spain, from the rise of<\/a> the far-right Vox party<\/a> to the hundreds of mass graves<\/a> of people who died in the war that are still waiting to be exhumed.<\/p>\n

One other hugely important legacy that few people are aware of is the continuing effect<\/a> on books, both in Spain and throughout the Spanish-speaking world. To this day, translations of many world classics and works of Spanish literature are being reprinted using expurgated texts approved by the dictator\u2019s censors \u2013 often without publishers even realising it, let alone readers. It has had a chilling effect on freedom of speech over the years, and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n

Between 1936 and 1966, every single book published in Spain had to be submitted to a national board of censors for examination. The censors would decide whether the text should be banned altogether or was fit for publication, in which case they would stipulate any necessary changes. After 1966, when<\/a> a new law<\/a> that partly liberalised freedom of speech was introduced in the country, publishers could voluntarily decide whether to submit a text for censorship. However, the authorities still retained the ability to withdraw any book from circulation that they deemed unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Franco\u2019s censorship laws sought to reinforce Catholicism and promote ideological and cultural uniformity. The censors enforced conservative values, inhibited dissent and manipulated history, especially the memory of the civil war. Sexually explicit material was banned, as were alternative political views, improper language and criticisms of the Catholic church.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
El caudillo.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

Spain abandoned these policies after Franco\u2019s death in 1975, yet most of the same texts are still widely available today. Ira Levin\u2019s Rosemary\u2019s Baby is available in more than 20 different Spanish-language editions, for instance, including an electronic one, all of which lack two extended passages that according to the censors glorified Satan. James Baldwin\u2019s Go and Tell it on the Mountain is only available in a version with cuts that include references to birth control and details about the sex lives of the main characters. The publication of this expurgated text is sponsored by none other than UNESCO.<\/p>\n

Many literary works by some of Spain\u2019s most important 20th-century writers have suffered similar fates, including those by Ana Mar\u00eda Matute, Camilo Jos\u00e9 Cela, Juan Mars\u00e9 and Ignacio Aldecoa. In some cases, such as George Orwell\u2019s Burmese Days and Ian Fleming\u2019s Thunderball, censored parts have even survived in retranslated and restored versions.<\/p>\n

With no one under the age of 40 even alive during the dictatorship years, few people are even aware of the problem. Public libraries are encouraging people to read thousands of volumes without realising they are censored. Many of these texts have been imported to Latin America, sometimes even being republished in different countries with their censored parts intact. It means that a fairly large proportion of the world\u2019s population is being routinely denied access to literature as it was intended to appear.<\/p>\n

Why censorship never ended<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a well known fact<\/a> that Spaniards have found it difficult to confront their traumatic recent history. The so-called \u201cpact of forgetting<\/a>\u201d, a tacit decision among the Spanish political elites not to question or examine the past, was seen by many as vital to make the transition to democracy possible in the late 1970s and 1980s. For years, this included a general amnesia about Franco\u2019s cultural policies: even when books were retranslated to restore censored parts, few people said anything about it.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s 2007 Law for the Recovery of the Historical Memory was a major step<\/a> away from these years of forgetting. It condemned the dictatorship and established compensations for people who endured political violence during the regime. It also initiated the removal of statues and other public symbols which glorified Franco\u2019s reign. Yet other cultural artefacts, such as books, were overlooked.<\/p>\n

The upshot is that Spain\u2019s literary censorship problem is alive and well today. Indeed, it is arguably getting worse: it is easy to release digital versions of these classics, so Franco\u2019s hand even reaches into Kindles and tablets. We are talking about one of the most long-lasting yet invisible legacies of his regime. The effect on culture in Spain and in other hispanic countries is almost incalculable. Censorship has certainly distorted many people\u2019s perception of the civil war and its consequences. Many readers will also be ignorant of writers\u2019 real points of view regarding important social issues such as gender roles, birth control and homosexuality.<\/p>\n

The question is how to deal with this complex problem \u2013 particularly now that the Vox party, which is expected to do well in the upcoming election, has promised to repeal<\/a> the Law of Historical Memory on the grounds that it manipulates the past.<\/p>\n

The most important task is to raise awareness among the reading public. This needs clear support from the Spanish government, plus serious engagement from the whole literary sector, including libraries, publishing houses, translators, archives, cultural publications and writers themselves. The technologies that are giving new life to the problem could be used to help: a public database of restored texts, for instance, could become an important tool.<\/p>\n

The point is that while Spain has increasingly been addressing the impact of Franco\u2019s regime in the country\u2019s social and historical memory since the early 2000s, the process of coming to terms with the past is far from complete. The pact of forgetting has not only marred Spain\u2019s democratic progress, it has severely damaged the country\u2019s cultural heritage. Spain and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world will not be free from Franco\u2019s censorial shadow until this issue is publicly and decisively addressed. With people on the ascendant who would prefer to turn back the clock, there is no time to lose.\"The<\/p>\n

Jordi Cornell\u00e0-Detrell<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, University of Glasgow<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s exactly 80 years since the end of the Spanish Civil War, when General Francisco Franco\u2019s populist forces finally overcame the leftist resistance and plunged the country into full-blown dictatorship. Decades after his death, Franco continues to cast a long shadow over Spain, from the rise of the far-right Vox party to the hundreds of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/269322\/original\/file-20190415-147508-1x39xik.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Franco\u2019s Invisible Legacy: Books Across the Hispanic World Are Still Scarred by His Censorship","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6834,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6832\/revisions\/6834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}