A Monumental Controversy: The Memorial for the Victims of Franco’s Regime in Madrid

Abstract

The memory of the war and dictatorship in Spain and its representation in public spaces have been the subject of intense debate and controversy since 2000. This article focuses on the construction process of a memorial in the Almudena Cemetery (Madrid, Spain). It was initially planned to commemorate the victims of the dictatorship under General Francisco Franco in the city between 1939 and 1944, but this meaning became distorted during its construction. The research combines qualitative methodology techniques such as interviews, participant observation and document analysis. After describing the construction and resignification of the memorial, the text then examines the actions of resistance undertaken by victims' relatives, memorial collectives, academics and artists in the face of the institutional policy of silence at the city council level. The text supports the theories that understand that the shaping of collective memory in public space is an open process, often conflictive and subject to new appropriations. We understand that memory is not petrified in stone, but that it is a work that requires the participation of different actors and the design of permanent and/or performative strategies that give (or return) historical, ethical and pedagogical content to the monument.