Public memory and national recreation. Politics of memory and cultural practices in republican Barcelona (1931-1936)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse speeches and commemorative practices in Barcelona during the Second Republic (1931-1936). For this purpose, it uses a wide range of contemporary newspaper and administrative sources as well as national and international bibliography. The author understands that the «public memory» forms part of the «public sphere» in the Habermassian sense, that is to say of the area in which the community discovers and defines itself. With this aim in mind, the author dissects commemorative narratives and praxis so as to identify the ideologically implicit concepts that underlie or are made explicit within them. The concept of «public memory» is defined as a category of sociohistorical analysis. The text analyses the dominant speeches of memory and their links with the prevailing liberal-working class nationalism. It studies the coincidences and differences between these verbal and visual accounts and renaixentista Catalan historiography. At the same time, it is argued that the fundamental tenets of the Catalan historical mind-set, as well as the wish to «redeem the past», enable us to interpret the political behaviour of leaders in this period. The article also makes reference to the importance of citizen-led initiatives for the symbolic configuration of the new tapestry of urban memory.