Verbal and Non-Verbal Forms of Routinization of the Traumatic Experience of Francoism in Spanish Collective Memory

Abstract

This article examines the forms of routinization of traumatic experience associated with the dictatorship of Francisco Franco within the master narrative. These forms shape the socio-memorial framework of the collective memory of the Spanish people and determine their post-Francoist democratic collective identity. The relevance of this research lies in attempting to establish new causal relationships in the processes of self-identification and development of Spanish collective identity through analysis of linguistic and non-linguistic forms of trauma routinization. The novelty of the paper is determined by the comprehensive interdisciplinary approach that integrates two scientific concepts: cultural trauma and collective memory. The routinization of traumatic experience in oral narratives reflects the polarity of Spanish opinions regarding Franco’s regime: they are largely conditioned by personal or family memories of the Francoist era. This is manifested through the use of both neutral vocabulary and evaluative linguistic units with opposing connotations. The Law of Democratic Memory of 2022, serving as a written, institutionalized form of routinization, casts Franco’s regime in a completely negative light (evidenced, for example, by such lexical thematic groups as “Political Crimes”, “Dictatorship” and “Fascism”), thereby actualizing the need for a transition to a politics of memory after decades of a politics of oblivion. The routinization of traumatic experience through symbolic memorial forms involves excluding all remaining objects of the past associated with the figure of the Caudillo from the socio-memorial framework of collective memory and creating new memorials dedicated to the Civil War, which is a crucial tragic milestone of the Francoist era. An analysis of the representation of cultural trauma in collective memory demonstrates how traumatic events shape long-term structures of public consciousness. Moreover, it indicates that the master narrative functions simultaneously as a means of representing past events and as a tool for their interpretation. A promising line of further research into this topic is the study of forms of trauma routinization in the collective memory of representatives of other linguistic cultures whose self-identification has been influenced by fascist ideologies.