Discourses on the Spanish Civil War in Basque novels

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the literary discourses of Basque novels that deal with the memory of the Spanish Civil War, and to compare them with the sociopolitical context in which they were published. Firstly, we offer a summary of the period from the Spanish transition to the dissolution of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Euskadi and Freedom), focusing on the factors that worked either in favour of or against remembrance of the war. Then we interpret accounts of the war in Basque novels. Finally, our conclusion is that, in general terms, there is a parallelism between political and literary dynamics, although by the 1990s Basque novels were ahead of the times in seeing the need to provide a new, critical image of the Civil War; in the political field, however, that process was to take place at the beginning of the new millennium.