La visión de dos Españas opuestas y enfrentadas : fascismo o revolución en ‘Madrid, de Corte a checa’ y ‘Réquiem por un campesino español’

Abstract

The Spanish Second Republic and subsequent Civil War were important political and historical events which divided Spain into two -the conservative faction, defending traditional values, and the republican bloc in favour of revolutionary ones. The political, social and economic reforms, brought by the change in the regime, contributed to the formation of the Spanish contemporary society whilst also influencing the culture and the arts creating works implicated with the ideals of these movements. The aim of this dissertation is to show the ideological influence in novel -namely fascism in ‘Madrid; de Corte a checa’ by Agustin de Foxa and revolution in Requiem por un campesino espanol by Ramon J. Sender. Both sides had at their disposal authors compromised with their ideals and who dedicated themselves to write propagandistic or social literature. This investigation intends to prove how such authors manipulated history and portrayed their enemies in a bad light. Although the historiography has demonstrated crimes committed by both sides -both republicans and conservatives have carried out a hard repression in their respective territories-, these novels omit the violent behaviour of their movements. In addition, literary critics tend to set aside the fascist literature, regarded as too fanatic whilst studying in detail the literature sympathizing with the republicans (Lorca, Alberti, Miguel Hernandez ... ). It is through a detailed analysis of the characters in both novels that the investigator wants to show that also the republican literature is responsible of manipulating history. The first chapter discusses the political, economic and social panorama of Spain at the beginning of the 20th century and how this influenced the life and literary creation of the two authors being analysed. The subsequent two chapters investigate the Manichean techniques implemented by the writers to describe their characters and with which they intended to defend their values and incriminate their enemies.